ElectHER: Nigeria retrogressed in electing women into public offices in 2023

ElectHER, a pan-African organisation focused on enhancing women’s participation in economic and public life, says the country retrogressed in electing more women into public offices during the 2023 polls when juxtaposed with 2019.

Speaking at the launch of the ‘ElectHER Gender Assessment Report of the 2023 Elections’ and ‘Silenced Voices, Stolen Choices’ in Abuja, Ibijoke Faborode, ElectHER’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO), said women’s choices are being stolen because they have been prevented from leading.

Faborode said the deficit in women’s participation in governance keeps widening.

“If you deprive women of the right to live, exist, decide, to lead, you are essentially silencing their voices and stealing their choices,” she said.

“In the 2023 elections, out of 1,553 women who contested for political seats, 72 women were elected, representing a huge loss for female candidates.

“Compared to the last election cycle, we have a retrogression.

“These numbers are clear, these numbers are bold, and they tell us the story that we have a deficit in space and it keeps declining.

“This is what these reports aim to unravel.”

On his part, Zissimos Vergos, deputy head of mission of the EU delegation to Nigeria, said Nigerians should work hard to eliminate the barriers that hinder women’s participation in politics.

“It’s not a woman problem, it’s a national problem,” Vergos said.

“While there are many problems that Nigerian women face, increasing their representation in political offices would go a long way in solving these problems.”

Vanessa Gregory of the Nigerian Women Trust Fund said the conversation about gender inclusion in politics needs to be ongoing and not only when elections are at hand.

“You find that when we talk about gender representation in governance, it is always in the build-up to elections when women are contesting,” Gregory said.

“I think it needs to start from now.”

A synopsis of the “Silenced Voices, Stolen Choices” report said false allegations, physical violence, cyberbullying, sexual abuse, and verbal insults were some of the forms of electoral violence that manifested during the 2023 general election.

The report said “11.36% of candidates who contested for various positions in 2019 were female. While that number was considerably low, it dropped further to 10% in 2023″.