Women In Nigeria

A Report from a WIN Member

Nigeria, presently ruled by a military regime, is supposed to be moving towards civilian rule in 1992. The Military Government set up a Political Bureau in 1986 to canvass for the views of Nigerians on the socio-economic and political system they wanted to see established. The Political Bureau commissioned a number of organisations, among them Trade Unions and women's groups to hold seminars and workshops and submit memoranda to the Bureau which it then collated for submission to the government. However, the military government has unilaterally rejected almost all of the recommendations that were made and set out its framework for "democracy""including that they will choose and register the only two parties which will be allowed to exist legally and contest elections.

Women in Nigeria (WIN) has recently launched a pamphlet, entitled the WIN Position on Women in Politics based on the views of the thousands of ordinary women contacted for their opinions for Nigeria's future political and socioeconomic system. In doing so, they are attempting to influence the political associations which have been formed and are struggling to gain approval from the military government in order to be registered and gain political power - and most of whose utterances (as usual) ignore women, women's interests and women's rights.

Following is a report from a WIN member.

Position on Women in Politics

In 1986, Women in Nigeria (WIN) was commissioned by the Political Bureau to hold a single national conference to find out women's views on the political debate. WIN was convinced that a single seminar would not be adequate to allow women and representatives of women's organisations to participate meaningfully and effectively. Therefore WIN decided to organise many small workshops, symposia and seminars across the country which enabled:

• particular attention to be paid to mobilising non-elite women, by going into the rural areas and meeting poor rural ordinary women, instead of only calling on chiefs' or local government councillors' wives and the like;

• a wide cross-section of women to be able to participate (including poor women, women farmers, instead of only the elite women who usually dominate such meetings);

• the use of indigenous languages like Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Pidgin as well as standard English) so that all were able to participate in the discussions fully and freely;

• a larger number of women and women's representatives to exchange views (over 1,600 participants, and 97 different organisations).

Since many women here in the North are in seclusion WIN put a lot of effort into contacting women in purdah and a number of meetings were held specifically for secluded women. Many people had thought that secluded women might be ignorant, but in fact, after their initial shyness and hesitation, they spoke out strongly and clearly about what they saw as necessary for women's equal participation in politics. They were the first group, for example, to advocate that 50% representation should be reserved for women in all legislative and executive posts in line with the proportion of women in the population. They also wanted a single free and compulsory schooling system for all children to attend, in line with the injunction on all Muslims to pursue knowledge and against the myth or misconception that female education is anti-Islamic. Similarly they wanted women to be taught their religious rights - one woman recounted how she had been taught that it was her religious duty to obey her husband whatever he said, to the point of bowing to his buta (water kettle for prayers) if he was not in... until she started adult education Islamic knowledge classes she had never known that the way to Paradise is though obeying Allah's commandments and that each individual stands alone before Allah on the Day of Judgement.

In the course of these numerous workshops WIN found that the 29 guidelines issued by the Political Bureau were inadequate as far as women's participation was concerned. This made it necessary for WIN to expand the guidelines to include a consideration of the conditions necessary for the active participation of women in politics and decision-making.

The proceedings of all these seminars and symposia were brought together and discussed at a national conference. There all the issues were discussed and these deliberations with the recurrent demands of all the women were put together to form this document - the WIN position on Women in Politics, representing the views of the majority of Nigerian women.

All the proceedings of all the .seminars, workshops and conferences were sent to the Political Bureau which accepted some of them - for example the recommendations for a multi-party system, for the elimination of all forms of exploitation, discrimination and oppression, and the principle that women should have specific proportions of representation. As you know, for reasons of its own, the Federal Military Government decided unilaterally to reject some portions of the Political Bureau's report and accept others.

However, in accordance with the desire to mobilise people and raise consciousness WIN feels that it is necessary to make everyone, especially aspiring political associations, aware of what women have recommended for Nigeria's political system and for women's full participation in debates and decision-making.

Finally let me reiterate that these recommendations are intended to promote social justice and in the best interest of all Nigerians - they were made as a result of suggestions made by a huge • number and wide cross-section of Nigerian women in all strata of society, from all walks of life and from all parts of the country - in a democratic process.

Not only should they be accepted as a matter of pragmatic necessity for those wanting political power (women are the majority of the population and therefore also the majority of those eligible to vote). But they must be accepted and implemented also as a pragmatic condition for democracy and development in Nigeria - as Mohammed Amin pointed out many years ago, a society attempting to develop without the full participation of its women is like a bird trying to fly with only one wing. It is bound to go off course.

For further information please contact:

Women in Nigeria (WIN) P.O. Box2533 Sainani Zaria, Nigeria