Women’s participation in the 2019 general election: A review of NWTF Gender and Election Watch (GEW) report on Kano, Oyo states

Though the 2019 general elections are over with their victors and losers, there are people and organisations who believe that the results and challenges the election posed urgently deserve thorough review and critique for the betterment of Nigeria’s electoral process and democracy. While many political parties and politicians are busy strategizing and politicking for the 2023 elections, some organisations like the Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), one of the 2023 election observers, through its Gender and Election Watch (GEW), is bent on providing avenues for the electorate to compel their leaders to account for their stewardships in their various political officers.

NWFT is a not-for-profit organisation that works to improve women’s leadership by closing gender gap at all levels of governance through grant making, leadership development, research and communication, and gender advocacy. Aware that corruption and unaccountability in the Nigerian electoral process continue to make women’s participation almost impossible, NWTF initiated the GEW—a member of the Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room and an exclusive election-observation brand—to serve to bridge the gap and provide comprehensive insight on how women engage with the electoral process as the electorates, candidates and electoral officials on election days.

Asked why GEW, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NWT, Mufuliat Fijabi, lamented, “Strategic election analysis through observation is particularly helpful in countries in which significant proportion of the population may lack fair representation in the electoral system… Similarly, the analyses of issues prioritised by women exclude constraints presented by the quality of governance, which could potentially influence women’s protection or a level political playing field.”

I’m concerned no one is willing to be Sowore’s surety ― Judge

It was on this premise that, during the 2019 general elections in Kano and Oyo states, the NWTF GEW sensitised and deployed 132 observers from each senatorial zones of the two states, who were trained on election procedures, observer’s roles and responsibilities, and administering Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) checklist on election observation from a gender and accountability perspective.

On September 2019, about six months after the general elections, GEW published its report that provided real-time election observation feedback and gender analysis of the two states under consideration. A month later, on October 15, inside one of the conference rooms of Koltol Guest House in Ibadan, Oyo State, a public presentation of the report entitled ‘Women’s participation in the 2019 general elections from an accountability perspective: Kano and Oyo states under spotlight’, was launched by NWTF in partnership with Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) with support from the MacArthur Foundation.

Speaking on the overall goal of the report, Roselyn Musa and Jide Ojo explained why GEW focused on Kano and Oyo states. They noted that none of the states has had a female governorship candidate since 1999—though Oyo had two female deputy governorship candidates since 1999. For example, In Oyo, out of the about forty-two governorship candidates in the March 2019 election, only six were women with seventeen deputy governorship candidates. In Kano, out of the fifty-five governorship candidates in the March 2019 election, only nine were women with four deputy governorship candidates. General, throughout the country, Musa frowned that only two per cent of women won elections in the last general elections.

Furthermore, the percentage representation of electoral stakeholders, in terms of male and female, in Kano and Oyo states was not encouraging. Out of the following stakeholders: party agents, electoral officers, security personnel, observers (local and international), electoral monitors and media, males were leading with almost times two of the number of females. It was only in Oyo State that observers females led by 60.65 per cent against 39.34 per cent of males.

“One of the characteristics of Nigeria’s democracy is its overwhelming dominance and control by men. This has allowed for a culture of violence and impunity to be entrenched as part of politics and governance,” the report said. “This is well-illustrated by the respective politics of Oyo and Kano states with respect to women’s participation and involvement at the highest levels… This picture is reinforced during electioneering periods where patriarchy, violence, religion and culture stereotypes are openly displaced by male aspirants.”

The ninety-three page report noted that previous general elections revealed that lack of accountability and corruption have been internalised and institutionalised in the electoral process, hence the epileptic political development in Nigeria. “The most prominent female governorship candidate could barely match her male counterpart in funds as her estimated campaign spending was below N5 million even though she had also crowd sourced for funds” the report said.

Out of the eleven recommendations in the report, three are worthy of mention: One, “It is necessary that all stakeholders—citizens, media, politicians, civil society organisations, etc. to scrutinise INEC on a regular basis and in so doing make it to be accountable to citizens and not to politicians.” Two, “The regimes on campaign finance should be promoted more widely across media, civil society, NGOs, etc., in order to enhance the transparency and accountability of the electoral process.” Three, “To ensure an inclusive electoral process, INEC has obligations to make legislative recommendations for electoral improvements that will lead to greater political participation by women.”

While delivering her speech, Mufuliat Fijabi stressed that the INEC must renew its commitment to gender equality and women’s participation in the electoral process by sustaining the momentum on its political will around the INEC Gender Policy. She stated that INEC had obligation to make legislative recommendation for electoral improvements that will lead to greater political participation by women by “following through the Promoting Gender Equality in the Electoral Circle recommendations by the UNDP/UN WOMEN14.

“We are presenting this report to you for advocacy, for accountability matters, for advanced progress of women, and for the recognition of the fact that women are important in any developmental progress,” she said. “It is good we have INEC here represented, and we will get appropriate response from them. We cannot work together and not tell ourselves the truth to advance the course of Nigeria’s democracy.”

Representing INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu, was the National Commissioner of INEC, Dr Adekunle Ogunmola. In his address, the INEC chairman stated that during the 2019 general election, activities and engagements showed high-level participation of women in the electoral process as aspirants, but due to barriers they regret the number of women that won the elections.

He lamented that the huge effort made by the commission to support the participation of women in the electoral process did not succeeded in addressing the decline of women’s representation in politics. He stated that this has become worrisome, as women’s participation in governance and leadership is not only an essential perquisite for removing gender inequality but also to the attainment of the basic human right.

“We have commenced the process of studying this report and will review all recommendations from it, like other observer reports, with a view to deepening democracy in Nigeria,” Yakubu said. “We will also take into consideration the reports of previous committees on electoral reports, judgements of the election petition tribunal, among others.”

While delivering his speech, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Oyo State, Barrister Mutiu Agboke, emphasised that, apart from engaging, inviting and talking to women about elections, they must be mainstreamed to the basic activities of electioneering process. He enjoined political parties to open frontier of engagements with women and include them not just as party women leaders, but as chairpersons of parties or other important party leadership positions.

“We are at INEC encourage women to join the conversation in ensuring that they are part and parcel of politics and political development in Nigeria,” he said. “In doing that, we must engage the political parties to liberalise the space for women.”

Also present at the event were representatives of Kano State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC). Others included the CEO of Women’s Radio, Toun Sonaiya; the Secretary General of Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA), Hajiya Saudatu Mahdi; the Zonal Director of National Orientation Agency, Dolapo Dosunmu; women from some political parties and media house, among others.

Saudatu Mahdi emphasised that inclusion of women in governments brings about quantity and quality in governance, and that faith and cultural barriers should not be a hindrance to that effect. She noted that there is nothing sacrosanct about governance and politics, adding that “politics is a profession and governance is a responsibility.”

Toun Sonaiya highlighted the role of the media in the electoral process and how women politicians are portrayed in the media. She noted that irrespective of a woman’s strengths and weaknesses, when it comes to politics, people see her as an underdog. “People rely on what the media for tells them. So, let’s report women positively,” she said.

Dolapo Dosunmu held that when it comes to campaigns and elections, women are the most gullible. She stressed that if women would stop seeing women politicians as people with nothing to offer, they would go a long way in competing favourably with men. “Women politicians should create time to identify themselves with their communities and start their campaigns on time, this will give them better advantage over their male counterparts,” she said.

Female politicians at the event spoke about their experiences and challenges in the last elections and what could be done to salvage the electoral problems of Nigeria. They commended NWTF for supporting women politicians and for their gender advocacy projects. They also commended them for coming up with the report and urged INEC to review and implement the various recommendations in the report for the betterment of the nation’s democracy.