By TUNDE AREMU
Celebration of women by the Nigerian state and non-state entities, especially during global moments such as International Women’s Day, is a regular occurrence. The Nigerian government, through relevant ministries, agencies and institutions, never fails to organise activities, events and gatherings, both sombre and trivial, on such days. Although some of these celebrations may sometimes appear facetious, what remains constant is the state’s intentionality in celebrating women. At the highest level of government in the country, women have been celebrated for their contributions to national development and strength. In 2024, for instance, President Bola Tinubu, according to his former spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, acknowledged the value that women bring to the table. He stated that “in every discipline and field of human endeavour, the standout achievements of Nigerian women have become a testament to the resilience, strength, courage, and ingenuity of all women across the world, as well as a mark of their exceptional quality as emissaries of hope and possibilities.”
Nigeria, checking some of our national and sub-national policies, appears to count among nations that have placed the Beijing Platform for Action as at the heart of their agenda for women’s empowerment. For instance, checking most of the country’s social interventions programmes/policies from the 1980s until date, which include the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS); National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP); the Seven Point Agenda; the Vision 20:2020 Blueprint; the Transformation Agenda; the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), women issues appear to take a central place.
On paper, all of these development strategies and interventions accord special attention to the concerns about gender and social inclusion. However, under scrutiny, particularly at the level of implementation, there remains a need to pay close attention to factors that continue to exclude women and the girl child from opportunities for self-development and self-actualisation.
“Women in Power and decision-making” was one of the 12 areas of concern on which agreements were reached at the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) signed by 189 governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995. This became central among the twelve areas of concern, as the achievement of the other eleven would be determined by the extent to which women have opportunities to participate in public life and to ensure equal access to leadership. Achieving gender balance in government, political parties, the judiciary, and the corporate sector, thus, depends on how much each jurisdiction is able to invest in and eliminate obstacles to women’s access to power and decision-making spaces. This year, as the Nigerian delegation joins the rest of the world at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at the two-week Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), it is critical to ask: whither Nigeria, 31 years after signing the Beijing Declaration?
With women’s representation in elective and appointive positions across the country hovering around 6.7%, far below the African regional average of 23.4%, Nigeria, despite many claims by successive governments, has failed to give women the deserved space in governance and leadership. The abysmally low number of women representations at the national assembly, standing at about 4% to 6.5% of seats is the signpost of our unfair treatment of women who apart from constituting about half of the populace, are also responsible for some critical aspect of the sustenance of the country, a major one being agriculture, where they produce the bulk of the food we eat.
Until some of the challenges militating against women rising in the public and private sectors are removed, Nigeria’s celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD) remains an irrelevant session of photo-ops and meaningless rhetoric.
A number of studies in the past few years have shown some improvement in women’s representation in the top hierarchy in the private sector in Nigeria. A 2021 report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) stated that “More women have made it to the top of Nigerian companies as CEOs and chairpersons of boards than in some G20 countries.” This appears to give cause for celebration. However, a closer look reveals an underbelly that is not so comely. A 2025 report, “Women in the Workplace 2025: India, Nigeria, and Kenya” by a global a management consulting firm, Mckinsey & Company, revealed that although, “once women enter the workforce, their representation holds relatively steady, with little to no drop after the manager level”, their representation at the C-Suit level, i.e. the top-ranking senior executives posts normally starting with Chief, such as CEO, COO, CTO etc remains low. The reason for this is easy to grasp: entry-level barriers still weigh heavily against young women. And until this barrier is addressed, the report states that “the narrow pipeline at the start means senior roles are likely to remain weighted toward men”.
Until some of the challenges militating against women rising in the public and private sectors are removed, Nigeria’s celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD) remains an irrelevant session of photo-ops and meaningless rhetoric. The day, as conceived, is meant for the celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
One of the most assured way of taking the bulls by the horns in this instance, is ensuring women’s representation at the levels where policy and law-making increases, thus ensuring that issues affecting women’s developments, self-actualisation and realisation of their ambitions are debated in an atmosphere where a reasonable number of those discussing and taking decisions on them are those who understand and feel it. A step towards this was the demand for the 35 per cent affirmative action already guaranteed by the 2006 National Gender Policy. Unfortunately, the quest to have this policy implemented has suffered several setbacks over the years. Even after a 2022 Federal High Court ruling made it mandatory for the government to enforce the policy, basing its decision on international treaties Nigeria is signatory to, there has been near-zero effort to implement the policy. This is not unconnected to entrenched cultural, religious, and political antagonism to women’s empowerment. A Constitution Alteration Bill in the national assembly, aimed at legalising the gender policy provision for 35 per cent representation of women in the National and State Houses of Assembly by preserving Special Seats for women, has repeatedly suffered setbacks in parliament. This law is not a novel idea, as more than 130 countries worldwide, many of them in Africa and in other low or middle-income countries, have been implementing it.
As the country joins the rest of the world, in New York and back at home, to celebrate International Women’s Day, the question should be asked why the current administration has not, in any way, either through public pronouncements or through direct and subtle actions, indicated interest in having this bill passed. The question becomes more pertinent as the party in power, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Article 7(vii) of its constitution, as amended in 2022, committed to upholding affirmative action for women, youth, and persons with disabilities (PWDs), stating in part that the aims and objectives of the party shall be “To observe Affirmative Action in all elective and appointive positions and ensure that youth, women Amended for clarity and provision for affirmative action for Women, Youth and Persons and Persons Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) are properly represented across all Party organs and government.”
*Aremu, a development communication and policy expert, works with Plan International Nigeria.
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