Nigerian Politics and her Diversity Problem

Diversity requires commitment. Achieving the superior performance diversity can produce needs further action – most notably, a commitment to develop a culture of inclusion. People do not just need to be different, they need to be fully involved and feel their voices are heard. – Alain Dehaze

It is election season in Nigeria, and as become the norm, our newsfeeds and timelines are chock-full of politicians, political jobbers and their shenanigans.

From the catastrophe that masqueraded as re-run elections in Osun State, to party primaries marred by confusion and hyperbolic counting of voters in Kano State, Nigeria has once again displayed an inability to manage the most mundane task without her trade-in-mark incompetence.

However, one thing that has been a constant, in Nigerian politics are the men, old men. Some of whom have been in power since Nigerian Independence 58years ago. These men that have done everything they can to keep their stranglehold on the country, running it deeper into poverty.

Reductive Reasoning: Federal Character = Inclusiveness and Diversity

The “federal character” principle, which has been enshrined in Nigeria’s Constitution since 1979, seeks to ensure that appointments to public service institutions fairly reflect the linguistic, ethnic, religious, and geographic diversity of the country. – Ladipo Adamolekun et al, 1991, “Federal Character” and management of the Federal Civil Service and the Military

Nigeria has 250 ethnic groups, speaking over 1000 languages within its borders, and in order to ensure that every cultural group participates in, and furthers its economic and socio-political growth, the Federal Character Principle was enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution in 1979, but this principle appears to have room only for these same old men.

Although signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW), and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the stance of the Nigerian government appears to be that of dismissal and disinterest in the inclusion of women in governance.

In 2017, several attempts were made to introduce two bills that would ensure that governance and public life would be more diverse in Nigeria, Senators Biodun Olujimi, Binta Garba and Rose Oko, supported a bill seeking 35% Affirmative Action at the Federal level, and 20% at state level. The second is the Gender Equality Bill, which was practically sneered off the floor of the House of Assembly.

In spite of evidence to the contrary, especially with women running successful privately owned companies and chairing government parastatals, Nigerian Senators still subscribe to the notion of gender roles and the place of women in the kitchen.

On the surface, it appears that the Nigerian populace is, at least, willing, to entertain the idea of diversifying policy making and other government apparatus that would ensure a wider pool of opinions and voices, but the Not Too Young to Run bill, that was recently passed into law seems to be nothing but a publicity stunt.

The act ’empowers’ people who are 25years to run for office, but the original age in the constitution is actually 30years, a mere 5year gap, in spite of the fact that 30year olds are allowed to run for office, there isn’t a single 30year old in any political office in Nigeria as things stand.

Diversity and Inclusivity as drivers of National Development

In a world that has historically silenced and written out women’s voices, it is even more important that we open up spaces to all genders, especially women and other marginalized groups. So we can include their voices in the present, to build the future we all want to be a part of. Numbers matter, visibility matters, inclusion matters, and we can’t continue to sideline important voices. We must be deliberate in fair representation when it concerns our speakers, panels, attendees, contributors, consumers. We must make space for a multiplicity of voices that reflects the variety of the space we work and operate in.- Xeenarh Mohammed Author/Activist

Prebendalism refers to political systems where elected officials, and government workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and use them to benefit their supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic group – Wikipedia

Nigeria is run on a patronage system, as made even more apparent by the in-fighting presently going on in different political parties. The system is patriarchal and deeply corrupt, these three major issues are hallmarks of countries with little or no inclusivity and diversity, which leads to poor development indices.

With a system that encourages favoritism, it would be difficult to get a wide pool of competent people putting forth ideas and having the requisite skills to execute them. Worse still, with girls and women making up a little more than half of the population, it is incomprehensible that old men are the only ones in positions to make and execute policies affecting everyone.

The more there is a perpetuation of the self and ego, over a large population and issues affecting them, the deeper the divide between the rich and poor will become.

Several studies have established the fact that diversity and inclusion are the major drivers of innovation and this affects everything. Nigeria’s present indices as one of the poorest countries in the world seems to have no chance of improvement anytime soon.

Ayodele Olofintuade is a journalist, writer and feminist.

Reproductive Health and Rights: A series of interview with women living in low-income communities(III)

After a lot of outcry, both on social media and in traditional news outlets, by feminists and human rights activists about the manner in which the proposed #GEO Bill was thrown off the floor of the National Assembly, the senate president, Senator Bukola Saraki, agreed to re-introduce the bill. It passed a second-reading, and was stalled pending a public hearing which was postponed due to the absence of the members of the senate committee in charge of the hearing.
It is important to note that on June 13,1985 Nigeria ratified, with no exceptions, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which is also considered the international bill of rights for women, but since its ratification, the convention has not been domesticated. The #GEO Bill actually incorporates a large part of the CEDAW.
In this interview, Jolomi* who trained as a ‘chemist’ (drug dispenser) discusses issues bordering on sexual autonomy, the high rate of abortions amongst women in her community, women’s lack of knowledge about their anatomy and inability to take reproductive health decisions due to this ignorance. She also discusses the state of primary health care facilities and the impact poor reproductive health decisions on the population.

Interview with Jolomi

My name is Jolomi, I went through primary school and got my SSCE before venturing into business. I sell medicine and run a chemist [patent medicine store]. It is common amongst women of my age that there’s a lot of ignorance about their bodies and how it works, particularly as it pertains to their reproductive health seeking behaviour. For example, most of the common cases women bring to me are about pregnancies. Like some of them they might be nursing a 2 months old baby and then they’ll come and tell me that they are pregnant. Meanwhile, this same woman might have had four or five children. This goes to show that we, women, need to know the period we should share intimacy with a man. So these women come to me asking me for a solution because they really don’t want to be pregnant yet, or some of them will say they are already pregnant and want to use something to terminate the pregnancy.

Audio excerpt 1

As you well know, prevention is better than cure, so its really important that we know our menstrual cycle so that we’ll know when we should have sex and when we shouldn’t.

I usually carry out a pregnancy test to confirm whether they are actually pregnant or not, it is important to first test for pregnancy. Because some women panic when they don’t see their period two months after delivery, so it’s important to carry out a test, if it’s positive, but if it’s negative then one will confirm that the person is not pregnant.

Usually after the first abortion and I’m able to tell them about their menstrual cycle, and their ‘safe period’, they are usually able to maintain the cycle and will stop making that kind of mistake. Once they learn about it and know it, they never return to me with the same error. And they even go ahead and teach other people about their bodies and their safe periods.

Men don’t experience the kinds of problems women have. It’s god that will have mercy on us women. It is only women that they tell about how to avoid getting pregnant, and the period they have to use condom. This is because its only women that can get pregnant, men don’t get pregnant. On the other hand, men don’t need any kind of warnings or education because they are free. For example when some women are pregnant they won’t feel like having sex again, because of this, such men knowing that if they ask their wives for sex they will get turned down, the man will prefer to have sex with other women.

Audio excerpt 2

What I’m trying to say is that a lot of men lack self-control when it comes to the matter of sex. Even medically it’s difficult for men to control themselves. When men abstain from sex it gives them stomach upset, and this is due to the way their anatomies are made. The stomach upset is caused by the fact that their semen is inside them and they need to release it, so that they’ll become lighter.

A lot of women don’t think about the impact having many children has on the population. For example, let’s say the government did a census last year and counted ten people, whatever plans they have in mind will be for those ten, but if on their return they find out that instead of let’s say 12 people they expected to see, they now find out that there are 2000 people, this causes a lot of difficulty for the government.

The government should make policies and laws that will mandate that female children must go to school up till a certain age, at least until they leave SS3. This will empower them to be able to join in moving the country forward and enable them contribute meaningfully to the society. Many people don’t believe in educating their female children. In some homes they’ll have four children, let’s say two boys and two girls, but they will educate only the boys in a meaningful way. This is because they believe that no matter how well-educated their daughter is, she will end up in the kitchen.

But it’s not supposed to be like that. It shouldn’t be like that. They should understand that women should participate in decision making, so that we women will have power too.

Children should be educated about their reproductive rights and health from the age of 11years. We are all civilized now, and things shouldn’t be covered up again. Sexual rights education should be part of the school’s curriculum, it is also important that parents should have knowledge about these things so that they can also teach their children.

I use family planning methods, the 2 months injection. My children are well spaced, and I don’t suffer from any side effects. Once I stop taking the injections, after six-months, I usually get pregnant. Although I use the services of the health centre in our neighbourhood, I really don’t like going there often. They are always complaining that they don’t have one thing or the other. Their services are never complete, so I prefer going to a private clinic.

To be continued.

• The interviews were recorded in Yoruba, transcribed and translated to English.
• The names of correspondents have been changed to protect the identities of the correspondents.
• For our Yoruba speaking audience audio notes of the women’s interviews are embedded in the article.

 

Find previous interviews here and here.