Oluwatoyin Olajide: Allyship and new beginning Nurturing hope for meaningful gender representation

2023, I came across a video of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie deriding the arrogance of the Nigerian people and the co-existence of this arrogance with ideals that make us seem far removed from progressiveness, progressiveness in this sense characterised by the substantial representation of women in governance. One stack feature or proof of women’s marginalization and exclusion from political leadership, which she also noted is that Nigeria, is yet to have a female governor. Unsurprisingly, keen observers like myself have once again been proven right going by the results of the concluded elections. More so, this gloom that I feel is exacerbated by the fact that there was a ray of hope for a female governor in Adamawa State, where Aisha Binani contested fiercely for the seat, but alas, lost it in the end, after the re-run. The number of women elected makes things more, for lack of a better word, bleak. Only three women now hold a senatorial seat out of the available 109 and only 15 women of 360 will now be members of the House of Representatives. At the state level, things did not improve significantly; 45 women out of 990 members are in the state House of Assembly. What these figures mean is that yet again, women are not significantly represented in parliament and subsequently law making. In light of this disappointing reality, what trajectory will the journey towards gender equality be for the next four years? How can more laws and policies that substantively protect and promote the rights of women come into existence with such a constrictive context for the public authority of women lawmakers to thrive? My questions should not be interpreted to mean that male lawmakers cannot sponsor bills which promote gender equality, but rather that she who wears the shoes knows where it pinches. If it does not pinch her because class and privilege has shields her, she has better access to those who are feeling the pinch. But, I digress. I ask these questions because women’s representation in lawmaking is important; women have a stake in nation building just by virtue of their citizenship and membership of the Nigerian polity. I ask because a democratic society is a representative society where women who are half of the population have a voice in decision making and governance. I ask because women’s unique perspective, which is greatly influenced by their lived experience, is an extremely important component of law making and governance. Certainly, this is why the capacity for influence of women legislators within spaces of public authority can increase just by improving numeric strength. A case in point is the setbacks that the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill and other gender bills have suffered at the legislative level. I hope that these setbacks have now become at thing of the past because now, a new administration has taken the reins of leadership even though it has inherited a plethora of issues that continue to pose as stumbling blocks to gender equality. However, I choose to see this as an opportunity for the new administration to prove its commitment to gender equality. For example, we can begin with the President displaying his uncompromising stance towards gender equality through his power of appointments; perhaps at the legislative level, the gender bills in limbo can be accelerated to become law. The current President has so far appointed 4 women as special advisers, out of a total of about 27 appointments, is this history repeating itself? The previous President’s appointment of women into his cabinet during his two terms in office was disappointing and flagrantly dismissive of the stipulations of the National Gender Policy and his own verbal commitment to increasing women’s representation; he failed to appoint at least 35% of women to his cabinet. Little wonder why Nigeria’s ranking fell in the Gender Equality Index during the previous administration. I must however commend some positive strides by the Buhari-led administration such as The National Gender Policy on Agriculture launched in 2019 that contains strategies for reforms that empower women in the agricultural sector; the Sexual Harassment Bill passed into law with the potential it possesses for gender justice and The National Policy on Gender in Basic Education in Nigeria now serving as a framework for closing the gender gap in education. Worthy of note is the launch the HeforShe campaign by the then Vice President in collaboration with UN Women to symbolize the allyship that the government is willing to demonstrate to promote gender equality. Certainly, allyship is an important pathway and strategy for the new administration as well, seeing as women’s representation will again be below par. In the Renewed Hope manifesto which the present administration used to campaign, Women Empowerment was one of the action plans outlined. Four areas of focus were mentioned as pathways towards Women Empowerment; they are, Social Inclusion and Political Empowerment; Economic Empowerment; Fighting against Domestic Violence and Abuse, Educational Parity and Helping the most Disadvantaged. It is a good thing that the present administration acknowledges that it has an obligation to improve the status of women but I am concerned that it has not fully grasped the magnitude of work that needs to be put into this sector. What I suppose would have demonstrated an understanding of the huge responsibility for gender equality and women’s empowerment that is ahead is the inclusion of gender as a subsection of every action plan. In transportation for example, a strategy on how to increase women’s participation as workers and business owners, make transportation infrastructure affordable, accessible and safe for women can be emphasised. The administration can also interrogate the implication of an elitist oil and gas sector on the most disadvantaged, a category which women often fall under. This sort of critical examination will stimulate the government towards exploring other sources of sustainable energy generation which women can be empowered at. Ultimately, what I am asking of the present leadership is not only to pay lip service to women empowerment by repeating rhetoric of social development, supporting women’s businesses and closing the gender gap in education but to prioritise and commit to gender budgeting. Gender budgeting is the most practical pathway for gender equality and women’s empowerment in Nigeria because it would require that every Ministry Department and Agency of government have a budget and allocation for gender mainstreaming. This framework guarantees that required action towards empowering women is being taken at every level of governance. Granted that the budget for the year 2023 is already being implemented, the administration can begin to plan for a comprehensive adoption of gender budgeting for the next fiscal year. In the application of this framework, the Ministry of Women Affairs will play a very vital monitoring role over the mainstreaming activities of MDAs to ensure compliance. Adopting this strategy would amount to deviation from the norm of allocating funds to the Ministry of Women Affairs, in a holistic attempt to promote women empowerment. This approach is both idealistic and ineffective, going by the marginalization of women in virtually all sectors of the Nigerian nation state. Also, in such a multi-ethnic country, this strategy if properly implemented will address intersectionality issues, where exclusion based on ethnicity especially, would be eradicated and integration, fostered. Another dimension to allyship is that given the low representation of women in governance now, an immediate action that demonstrates a commitment to women’s empowerment would be the appointment of a substantial number of women as cabinet members, at the very least, a lowly 35% as stipulated in the National Gender Policy. Also, for these appointments to be significant, they should not mirror the stereotypic perception of what is socially suited to women. I recommend women ministers of transport, labour, science and technology and trade, a deviation from the conventional ministerial portfolios associated with women. The allyship of the present administration is a good place to start, but it is not nearly enough. What women need, what is integral for driving gender equality is a commitment and responsibility for the improvement of women’s and men’s livelihood, proven with actions commensurate to the magnitude of the work on ground. Oluwatoyin Olajide: Allyship and new beginning – Nurturing hope for meaningful gender representation

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