The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is collaborating with the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), a civil society organisation (CSO), towards increasing women and youths participation in politics.

Sam Egwu, the INEC Niger Resident Electoral Commissioner, stated this at a roundtable on ‘Strengthening Internal Democracy with Special Focus on Gender and Social Inclusion’ in Abuja.

Mr Egwu said the aim was to increase the number of women and youths in elective offices in the country. He added that the collaboration would also help increase the participation of People With Disabilities (PWDs) in the political space.

“The continued exclusion of women, youth and PWDs in politics challenges Nigeria’s claim to a democratic status of accommodation of diversity and amounts to denial of citizenship rights,” explained Mr Egwu. “Nigeria has only paid attention to territorially based diversities which are ethno-regional differences; even then poorly managed. Many explanations like ideology of patriarchy, culture, resistance of parties to democratic practices, lack of economic power, low level of mobilisation of women, weak regulation, among others are responsible.”

Mr Egwu said statistics indicated that the 2019 general election witnessed the lowest voter turnout in Nigerian history and a drop in the participation of women, youths, and PWDs in an election.

Mr Egwu stressed that political parties had to be pressured by regulatory bodies, CSOs and citizens to entrench party quotas guaranteed in law to change the outcome.

He charged the National Assembly to enact laws that would help boost the participation of marginalised groups in politics in Nigeria.

PLAC executive director Clement Nwankwo explained that the event was organised with the MacArthur Foundation’s support to help increase the participation of women, youths, and PWDs in politics.

Mr Nwankwo added that political parties were the only platforms for candidates to contest elections in Nigeria, so candidates presented by the parties to contest needed to be inclusive of the population, demography, and diversity.

He said in Nigeria, women occupied only 21 out of 469 seats in the National Assembly, making Nigeria the worst performer in West Africa on the representation of women in parliaments.

Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC)’s national chairman Yabagi Sani said the council was aware of the challenges faced by PWDS, women and youths and was working to deepen democracy by increasing their representation.

“We are in the season of political activities towards 2023, which will be a watershed in our journey towards entrenching democracy, so IPAC’s in entrenching inclusiveness is key,” he said.

MacArthur Foundation’s Africa director Kole Shettima said there was the need to analyse Nigeria’s democracy to assess the level of social inclusion.

“This is because unless we really get this right to enable an all-important segment of our society to be part of this process, we will still be excluded in our democracy we will not be able to deliver. The foundation has evolved a concept called gender and social inclusion as a mechanism to bring up the voices of people who have been excluded in our democratic system.” 

(NAN)