Womens Place In Politics Focusing On The African Union Declaration On Gender Equality In Africa The Case Of Nigeria

This study is on the place of women in politics with focus on the African Union’s Solemn Declarationrnon Gender Equality in Africa, in terms of the awareness, support for implementation, views of malernparliamentarians about the declaration, factors responsible for poor representation of women inrnparliament, and political aspirations among business women. The main purpose was to know thernlevel of implementation of the declaration, and to find out why there is still a huge gender gap (lessrnthan 8%) in the parliament, since Nigeria has carried out an election in 2007, three years afterrnsigning this AU declaration.rnQuantitative and qualitative research methods were used to collect primary data/information forrnanalysis of the set objectives. There was a triangulation of the primary data (quantitative andrnqualitative) together with some secondary data from the official documents. The results indicatedrnthat there is still lack of adequate awareness of the declaration among concerned bodies such as, thernparliamentarians, political parties, women organization and the society in general. The study alsornrevealed that all the coordinated efforts for gender balance in politics in Nigeria have yielded littlernor no significant result judging from the fact that the nation conducted last election in 2007. Alsornfindings on the political aspirations of women in business which make up a large percentage ofrnwomen in Nigeria indicated they have high aspiration to participate in politics, but are beingrndiscouraged by a number of personal and societal factors, top of them being violence andrnintimidation in politics. There is need for a more radical step such as the use of affirmative action orrnany other deliberate strategy for gender equity in politics to occur in Nigeria.rnHowever, the optimism is that the findings revealed that the government gender machinery, namelyrnthe Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Youth Development in Nigeria have gender parity as itsrnpriority with the development of a National Gender Policy even though the AU declaration is notrnindependently focused on. Rather, there are general efforts on gender mainstreaming focusing on allrnthe international and local instruments ratified and signed by Nigeria. The ministry is working inrncollaboration with both government and non – governmental agencies and political parties to deal with the issue of gender inequality in politics in Nigeria. Also on the awareness and implementation,rnCivil Societies working in the area of democracy and politics are involved in various programs to support proposals for constitutional reforms and adoption of affirmative action to cut the gender gap in politics

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism