Women and Political Participation: Toward Attainment of 35% Affirmative Action and Obstacles to the Women Participation in Nigerian Politics and Decision Making Process

Abstract

Women political participation in Nigeria is an issue of concern to many because of the continuing record of women's underrepresentation in both elective and appointive positions. Although, several efforts have been made by both government and non-governmental organizations to increase the level of women's participation in politics through affirmative action. This paper examined these efforts and the obstacles facing women in political participation. Previous literature shown that, after the reintroduction of democracy from 1999 – 2011, women political participation trend witnessed a drastic change. This was due to the efforts made by government and non-governmental organizations towards attainment of the mandated 35% affirmative actions. However, despite the increasing number of women in both elective and appointive positions from 1999- 2011, it has been observed that women are still marginalized considering the disparity in the proportion of men to women in political and decision-making positions. The authors found that, some factors, such as socioeconomic, ecological, cultural practice, political violence, illiteracy among women, contradictory nature of government policies has led to the lower level of women's political participation, and these factors consequently become an obstacle to the full realization of 35% affirmative action in the Nigerian political system.