Nigeria’s Female Representation Among The Worst Globally, Says Group

A group, The Leaders of Tomorrow Impact Campaign on the Naija NextGen Project, has claimed that the statistics of Nigeria’s female representation in political system remain among the worst globally.
It attributed the development “politics of exclusion” that must be urgently addressed.

The group also demanded the full implementation of the 35 per cent affirmative action target in the National Gender Policy, warning that without structural intervention, the 2027 ballot will reproduce the same poor showing for women and youth.

The group in a statement issued by its founder Delmwa Deshi-Kura in Jos, said Nigeria’s representation statistics remain among the worst globally.

“Nigeria, by contrast, has 15 women in a 356-member House of Representatives and four in a 107-member Senate. That is 4.2 and 3.7 per cent, respectively, placing Nigeria near the bottom of the global parliamentary table.

“This is not due to a shortage of qualified women. It is the predictable outcome of a political system that filters women out long before voters encounter their names on a ballot,” he said.

Deshi-Kura who is also a Nigerian media executive and impact filmmaker noted that repeated reform efforts had failed to yield results, citing the rejection of five constitutional amendments in March 2022 and the delays surrounding the Special Seats Bill.

“Yet that compromise has itself been repeatedly delayed and revised: a proposal once reported as reduced to only six additional women senators, one per geopolitical zone, has since evolved into a bill providing 12 Senate seats, 37 House seats and 108 seats across the state assemblies, but it still awaits constitutional passage despite sustained lobbying,” she said.

The group pointed to data from the 2023 elections as evidence of systemic exclusion.

“Nigeria’s 2023 election offers a sobering baseline. Women represented nearly half of the electorate but only 1,556 of the 15,331 candidates, approximately 10.2 per cent. There was one female presidential candidate, no female vice-presidential candidate, and only 26 women among 420 governorship candidates. None of the women who contested for governor in 2023 won,” Deshi-Kura stated.

She added that major parties rarely position women in winnable races: “The PDP fielded no female governorship candidate, while the APC fielded only Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed, widely known as Binani, in Adamawa State. The Labour Party fielded Beatrice Itubo in Rivers State. Women were visible but rarely positioned within parties and constituencies where victory was structurally attainable. Going by Nigeria’s antecedents, this is a feature of the system, not a bug.”

According to the Naija NextGen founder, the real exclusion happens during party primaries.

“Women and youth are encouraged to participate symbolically, yet must enter primaries shaped by opaque delegate systems, prohibitive costs, patronage networks and political intimidation. The ballot is, therefore, only the final stage of exclusion; the decisive losses often occur inside the parties,” she noted.

While acknowledging individual breakthroughs like Esther Nkem Okereke, Anita Zugwai-Chukwu and Doris Ogala securing party tickets, Deshi-Kura warned against mistaking visibility for impact.

“Echoing the already established pattern of women being allowed to secure tickets in parties with a low likelihood of winning. Regardless, these candidacies matter and should not be diminished. But visibility must not be confused with measurable impact or transformation,” she said.

The group stressed that Nigeria already has a policy framework but lacks enforcement.

“Nigeria has repeatedly affirmed the principle of greater inclusion, including the 35 per cent target contained in its National Gender Policy. Yet aspiration without enforcement has become a sophisticated form of exclusion. Every election cycle begins with promises of inclusion and ends with long winding explanations for exclusion,” the statement further read in parts.

Deshi-Kura argued that representation is not about virtue but about democracy and development.

“A democracy cannot consistently exclude roughly half its population from decision-making and still claim to be drawing upon its full reserve of intelligence, experience and legitimacy,” she remarked, adding that women’s leadership also delivers development returns as “spending patterns tend to shift towards children’s nutrition, health and education.”

Thus, the group called on the National Assembly to pass enforceable affirmative-action mechanisms, including reserved seats, and urged political parties to publish gender-disaggregated data.

“Crucially, the National Assembly should give serious consideration to enforceable affirmative-action mechanisms, including reserved seats. Without intentional structural intervention, exhorting women and youths to ‘participate more’ is merely asking them to compete harder inside a system that was not designed to admit them in the first place,” she said.

Deshi-Kura concluded that the 2027 elections and post-election appointments must reflect the country’s demographics.

“The 2027 elections are one opportunity for correction, but they are not the only one. Appointments made after the elections to federal and state cabinets, agencies, commissions and advisory bodies must also reflect the country being governed. Inclusion should not be confined to ‘women’s portfolios’.”

She said the Naija NextGen Impact Campaign will in the coming months use storytelling, town halls and digital engagement “to strengthen information integrity and transform passive audiences into informed civic actors.”

The founder further said, “The onus, therefore, lies on us to lend our voices to the campaign and join the movement to better integrate women and youths into the 2027 election cycle,” she added.