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 Rights and Health: A series of interviews with women living in low-income communities (II)

In 2016, Senator Biodun Christine Olujimi, proposed the incorporation and enforcement of certain provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, this bill came to be known as the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (GEO Bill).

Of interest are items 5 and 7.

Item 5 seeks to modify socio-cultural practices within both public and private spaces that causes people to be fitted into stereotypes (classifying them as inferior or superior).

… every public or private educational institution shall ensure the adoption of appropriate teaching methods and curriculum including provision of facilities that emphasise the promotion of equality of all sexes in all circumstances and for all purposes, including choice of career, equal participation and inclusion of all persons in all activities of the school or institution. – GEO Bill 2016, Senator Biodun Christine Olujimi.

While item 7 directly addresses the issue of eliminating discrimination in education. The bill was thrown out of the senate.

This action shows that the Nigerian government, in spite of many studies and evidence, do not understand that the more educated a woman is, the better her understanding of her reproductive rights and eventual reproductive health seeking behaviour. When women are educated they are able to make informed choices about the kind of Family Planning Methods they would use. They can make the connection between high birth rates and population explosion and how it affects the economy and the family’s spending power.

There are several similarities between Ruth’s interview and the one granted to us by Kudirat.

Interview with *Ruth

My name is Ruth and I’m a trader, I sell everyday goods from my house. I finished my secondary school education (SS3) and I am going to be 40 years old soon. I have four children, three boys and one girl. I didn’t use any family planning methods until just before I had my daughter. And even at that I only used the contraceptive for about six months.

Audio excerpt from Ruth’s interview (in Yoruba)

I stopped using it because I was allergic to it. I went to a private hospital when I wanted to do family planning, but they didn’t carry out any test on me. They only asked me the type I wanted. They wanted to know if I would want to use the one inserted into the arm, or the one inserted into the vaginal tract [Intrauterine contraceptive Devices, IUCD], or the injections [injectable contraceptives]. I told them I would like the injection that lasts for about three months. But after I took the injection my period kept flowing, all the time, that’s why I stopped taking the injections.

It is possible that public hospitals and health care centres carry out tests to determine the type of contraceptives that will work with one’s body, but those ones [a private clinic], didn’t do any test for me they didn’t tell me about any kind of side-effect, they just said that whoever elects to do the one inserted into the arm[contraceptive implants] that it lasts for five years.

According to some people, the one inserted into the arm needs a surgery, they will first open up your arm and some other people claim that it is quite painful. This is why I didn’t go down that line. And the one that is inserted inside you also has one long rope that makes washing down there discomforting. These are the reasons I decided to take the injection, particularly since all my friends are using that same method.

Nobody told me about menstruation or reproductive health or how to take care of myself, because I never really lived with my mum. The person that raised me was an old woman and she’s not the type to discuss that kind of thing with you. But, you know, when one starts going to school, once you start getting to SS (senior secondary school) you start hearing about different things, and then the subjects we were taught, particularly if you take sciences, you know… and by then one is no longer a child…the older one gets, the wiser one becomes. It’s because the world has become so civilized. When we were at the age that these children who are getting pregnant are, nobody ever discussed sex with us, but as the world is becoming more advanced, a lot of children are growing up pretty fast. Until I left secondary school I didn’t have a boyfriend.

Audio excerpt 2 from our interview with Ruth (in Yoruba)

As far as I’m concerned as soon as a child turns fifteen, one should be telling them about sex, in fact one can tell them that if you have sex with a man you’ll get pregnant immediately. There’s this program that we watch, on Saturday evenings, that one man was accused of raping a 3year old child.

If a man can afford it nothing stops you from having as many children as possible. I have a friend whose husband loves children, a lot of children. But the man is very rich and can afford to take care of them, that man has 3 wives, but he has divorced one of them, the other two are still having children. The number of children one has depends on the man, you know some men love having children. But some people decide that they will only have the number of children they can afford. In that case both the man and the woman will discuss this. There are also some men who don’t take care of their children, once a woman knows the kind of man she’s married to, she can go ahead and do family planning.

But in some cases, the husband and wife decides to plan their families, the husband is the one who will even give his wife money to go to the hospital.

As for us, there’s no number of children that we can’t decide to have, my father-in-law has many children, and he’s always telling his own children to have many children. This is due to the fact that my father-in-law was his mother’s only child. But then everyone has to decide the number of children they want to have, depending on whether they can afford it.

Especially with how everybody is becoming educated and school fees are becoming higher. It’s not everyone who has a high number of children that’s not educated, it depends on individuals and their love for children. I once worked in Lagos with a couple, very rich couple, but they have only two children, if this couple decides to have ten children, they can afford it. Education has nothing to do with the number of children you have.

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.