IN its 2015 official statistical report on women and men in Nigeria, the National Bureau of Statistics estimated Nigeria’s population distribution by sex at 49.5 per cent women and 50.5 per cent for men. Despite the not-so-significant difference in the population of males and females, Nigerian men consistently degrade and treat their female counterparts as minors and appendages undeserving of the fundamental human freedoms naturally bestowed on all citizens irrespective of sex, gender, creed, race, or colour. Nigeria has,on paper, demonstrated commitment to such international human rights instruments like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights;the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women;the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women; the African Union Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality; as well as to all the targets and goals contained in the Sustainable Development Goals including the gender equality related ones.
The Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) emphasized that“Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in decision-making process and access to power, are fundamental for the achievement of equality, development and peace.”Herein lies the idea of gender mainstreaming, a process that ensures equitable access to society’s valued resources, rewards and opportunities by both women and men. Thus, gender mainstreaming is clearly a moral imperative meant to promote prosperity and well-being for all. It is not an option for a few men in power. The outright rejection of the now famous five gender-equality-related proposed constitutional amendment bills by our supposed representatives (who are mostly men), on the very first day of the month of March,a month dedicated to the eradication of all forms of discrimination and to women(marked by the celebration of the International Women’s Dayon the 8th),dealt a very heavy and (un)expected blow to Nigerian women. The action of these lawmakers is not only a reflection of the dominance of patriarchy, androcentrism and the pervasive gender inequality in virtually every sector of our national life and development, but a blatant demonstration of either their ignorance of the importance of gender mainstreaming or of their deliberate show of shame consistent with their choice strategy to “malestream” rather than mainstream gender in Nigeria. It is both shameful, regretful, scandalous and sad that our elected lawmakers are not in touch with the reality of Nigerians where the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other development agencies report that 60 per cent of the estimated 10 million out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls.
The 2015 NBS report indicated that only 38.4 percent of women in Nigeria have tertiary education; the employment rate for women in the formal sector is 65.1 per cent compared to71.5 per cent for men; men at the national parliament constitute 92.5 per cent and women, a token 7.5 per cent; and representation at the local government is 94.4 per cent men and a trifle 5.6 per cent women; female judges in Nigeria constitute only 26.2 per cent of the total number of judges; men dominate the high-ranking government administrators with decision making powers as no single state of the federation has ever produced a female governor and only two deputy governors were female as at 2015. These statistics clearly point to the disadvantaged situation of women in Nigeria as a result of men’s relentless effort to “malestream” gender which has resulted in ensuring that: resource allocation and access to substantial credit facility is largely male centred; violence perpetuated by men against women at home, in the workplace, and elsewhere is hardly criminalised; women’s contribution to macro-economics is hardly valued; whereas women are made to primarily bear the burden of replenishing society and grooming its young members almost exclusively as the socially recognized home makers.
Little wonder that these men in power relish the discriminatory laws and practices that place them over and above their female counterparts. They are apparently more comfortable with an androcentric constitution which guarantees their ascendency than having the courage to confront the “elephant in the room”; and thereby betraying their supposed manliness and demonstrating that they are not “real men.” Real men recognize partnership with women as imperative to genuine development aimed at the wellbeing of all and sundry. Real men demonstrate courage by mainstreaming gender and ensuring that the perspectives, experiences, concerns, needs, etc. of both women and men form an integral part of every stage in the planning, formulation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of laws or policies and programmes to ensure that no gender is short changed. The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is unarguably the highest law of the land. In 2016 and even prior to that, gender bills were thrown out by the National Assembly members for not been in sync with the constitution of Nigeria.
Women as rational beings strategised and made the most of the rare opportunity of the ongoing constitutional amendments to address some of the contentious areas of discrimination in this prime document. They went ahead to educate, sensitize, and lobby the various stakeholders to win their cooperation in addressing the age-long crime against the women folkby the state since its inception, yet the men brazenly rebuffed their request and denied not only women but the entire population their full rights as citizens. It is therefore disgraceful to say the least, that our so-called elected representatives represent only their interests at the expense of those they perceive as a minority, forgetting that the majority votes of this same minority group are crucial to putting them in office. The differences in gender roles and responsibilities imply differentials in how laws, policies and programmes impact women and men. The role of patriarchal attitudes in the rejection of the 5 gender equality related amendment bills is very clear. The rejected bills are:(1) reserved seats for women;(2) citizenship for women’s foreign spouse; (3) affirmative action for political offices.
- Orisaremi (PhD) is a gender specialist and an Associate Professor of Sociology at Baze University, Abuja, Nigeria.
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