How has Nigeria fared over the years concerning women’s participation in politics?
Well, Nigeria has not done well at all. At a lecture I gave in Abuja a few months ago alongside Winnie Mandela and others, one of the statistics I drew out was that there are some countries that have between 30 to 47 percent women participation in government; whereas, Nigeria that prides itself as the giant of Africa only has seven percent. It was a little better during the Obasanjo era. I hope now that we have some women ministers, the trend will pick up again, especially Josephine Anenih who did very well on gender sensitive issues when she was PDP’s National Women Leader. What exactly is responsible for the low index of women’s participation in politics? I think it is the attitude of men. We have a situation where politics has been monetised and marred with a lot of violence. So, naturally, women do not have money and they do not like to engage in violent act. All the political parties are controlled by men who do not want women in politics because they feel they (women) cannot do t
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