In Nigeria, women’s rights movement existed even in precolonial days and keeps growing every day. With the growth of the women’s rights movement, Nigerian women have been able to get some laws passed in the parliament to help promote and protect their rights. One of such laws is the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 which has helped to address Gender Based Violence in Nigeria. However, one aspect of women’s rights that has been largely ignored by decision makers in Nigeria is the political rights of Nigerian women and this is a major contributor to the low percentage of women representation in governance. This has in turn contributed to the gender disparity that exists in decisions made by the government.
In seeking to address this, Women In Politics Forum (WIPF) began advocacy for legislative and constitutional reform. Though this advocacy had lasted for a number of years, it was not able to grow into a campaign or drive necessary stakeholders to action. However, in 2020 when WIPF got funding from ActionAid Nigeria and Global Affairs Canada for the WVL-N project, WIPF was able to strategically implement “The Constitution We Want” as a campaign which addressed the constitutional gaps and amendments needed to have a constitution that promotes the rights of Nigerian women. From running the campaign primarily on Rhythm FM, a Nigerian radio station, it grew beyond WIPF attracting other women’s rights activist to amplifying the call for constitutional amendment promoting political rights of women in Nigeria.
Building on this, WIPF had a dialogue with the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory and recommendations made to have a more inclusive constitution was taken. WIPF also had consultations with female parliamentarians from African countries namely Kenya and Uganda, who had improved women’s political participation through legislation or quota system. WIPF made a draft of the constitution with the amendments recommended.
This created a platform for WIPF to lead advocacies to the National Assembly, primarily Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege, the Deputy Senate President of the 9th National Assembly who also doubled as the Senate Committee chair on constitutional amendment. During the advocacy, WIPF presented the draft of the constitution which was received by the deputy senate president. In response to this advocacy, Sen. Omo-Agege sponsored a constitution alteration bill seeking to reserve 30 percent of cabinet appointments for youth and women at the federal level and 40 percent at the state level. This bill became one of the 5 gender bills for constitutional amendment. Due to the strategic advocacies to principal officers of the National Assembly (Including Rt. Hon. Nkiruka Onyejeocha who sponsored the specific seats bill) the bills were able to receive support from other parliamentarians as co-sponsors including Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila the speaker of the 9th National Assembly.
As a result, for the first time since the advocacy for constitutional amendment to promote political rights for women began, the gender bills were able to progress and in January 2022, they were passed by the National Assembly Joint Committee on constitutional amendment. From the committee level, the bills progressed to the plenary session of both houses of the National Assembly. Ahead of the plenary session, WIPF, together with other women’s rights leaders who had joined the campaign, further intensified awareness and advocacy to pass the gender bills and in March 2022, the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives joined the campaign and sent out a personal appeal to parliamentarians to vote in favor of the bills.
Though some of the bills were passed separately by both houses at the plenary, the constitutional amendment failed at this level because it was required for both houses to pass the bills before they can become law. For Women In Politics Forum and Nigerian women, the failure of the bills at the plenary of the 9th National Assembly did not mean a dead end but was a reminder of the progress the advocacy for constitutional reforms has achieved and we have gone back to the drawing board to strategize.
Today, the campaign for the constitution that Nigerian women want has received international recognition and more women’s rights activists are lending their voices to the advocacy. Women In Politics Forum has begun to engage the members of the 10th National Assembly in this regard and more importantly, we understand now that there is need to engage the state parliamentarians as they also have powers to make laws that can promote political participation of Nigerian women at state level.
