Ebere Ifendu is the President of Women in Politics Forum (WIPF). She is a lawyer, chartered mediator, conciliator, gender & human rights activist, and Director, Gender Education and Rights Department of the Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State. She spoke to PLAC Beam on the work of her organisation, agitations for increased women’s political representation in Nigeria and urgent interventions that can be taken to tackle this issue.
On the vision, mission and goal of the organisation
Women in Politics Forum (WIPF) is a forum set up by women leaders of major political parties in 2014 but it was actually initiated in 2011. We all looked at our issues in our different political parties and we realised that we all had similar issues and it was not possible for us to take our issues to our different political parties. So, we decided to form the Women in Politics Forum as an advocacy tool and as a forum that will support every woman irrespective of her political affiliation. I can tell you that today, we have become a very strong voice in supporting women in politics. Also, part of what we do is training and capacity building for women that are interested in politics. The forum is open for every woman that is up to 18 years old. 18 years because that’s the age you can vote and be voted for. We are a strong voice campaigning for increase in women’s political participation, campaigning for legislation to support women’s political participation, campaigning for support from political parties to create spaces for women to participate in politics. Our mission is to see that Nigerian women are given the opportunity to participate in politics and women that are interested in politics will not be faced with challenges that will pull them down. So, the organisation is there to support every step women take to achieve political participation and prominence.
Our mission is to see that Nigerian women are given the opportunity to participate in politics and women that are interested in politics will not be faced with challenges that will pull them down.
Ebere Ifendu, President of Women in Politics Forum (WIPF)
On the origin and length of time agitations for women’s political rights have taken
Even before 2011 when we initiated Women in Politics Forum, the agitation has been there. Our forerunners started with the agitation. If you ask me, I’ll tell you that it’s taken over 20 years or more, but you know, at every point in time there is a step that has been taken. Initially, Nigerian women thought that if they get free forms from political parties that it will mean that they are participating in politics. This, we realised, didn’t help the cause of women. Because of lack of internal party democracy and politics, women are never considered. When they talk about consensus and zoning, you hardly see them zone positions or concede to women. It has been a step at a time. Yes, it is a long struggle. It may just be more than 20 years. The agitations have been on since the time of Margaret Ekpo and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. For every step, there is one progress made. So, we hold on to that progress and take another step.
When they talk about consensus and zoning, you hardly see them zone positions or concede to women.
On the major challenge women are facing in politics and contesting for elective seats:
OK, for me, I think it’s legislation. Legislation that is not supporting affirmative action or quota system for women. The challenge is legislation because in most political parties even though some of them do have affirmative action in their constitution, they have refused to implement it. If we have proper legislation that is in the Nigerian Constitution or an Act that says that a certain percentage of political positions must be kept aside for women, because there’s a law, political parties will honour and respect it. So, before looking at culture, patriarchy, religion, funding, etc., if we say that women must have 50% participation in politics, you know what that means. It will mean that political parties will be the ones scrambling to get more women to participate in politics but as it is, we need laws supporting political participation of women. We need laws that will get political actors to respect their constitution. We need laws that will make INEC reject any political party that is not submitting a nomination list that is taking cognizance of quota system for women.
On the importance of Affirmative Action for women
Without affirmative action, it might just be difficult for women to achieve political participation. Why am I saying this? If you look at other countries where they have quota systems or affirmative action, women are participating fully, countries like Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Senegal got parity instead of affirmative action. It is so clear now that without some kind of affirmative action, women may not be able to participate fully in politics. It is important for Nigeria to create spaces for women. I am saying this because, look at the economic situation of the country, the security situation of the country, all round, we are having issues, and this is because women themselves are not part of governance. In a system where we say we are practicing democracy and that democracy is not inclusive, it is not democracy. The youths are not there, persons with disabilities are not there, women are not there. So, it’s just one section of the population, the men.
Prognosis on women’s political participation, following the failure of five gender bills, including affirmative action bills, in the recent constitution amendment exercise by the 9th National Assembly
I think we have to work more with political parties, but my worry is that time is not even on our side, looking at the Electoral Act and the timetable so far published. A party like Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) just extended the sale of forms and submission to 5th of April and by June, they will be done with primaries and nomination of candidates. So, it’s the timing now. If we do not work with parties to get women nominated, we might not just have women to be voted for in 2023 elections. It’s really sad that the bills didn’t scale through. They have really taken us 10 years behind.
(Gender Bills rejected by the National Assembly: Special seats for women in the National and State Houses of Assembly, affirmative action for women in political party administration, appointive positions for women, expansion of the scope of citizenship by registration for foreign men married to Nigerian women, and indigeneship rights for married women.)
On women not making it to the ballot despite making up about half of the population
We have lost affirmative action; we have lost the bills. Legislation would have been the easiest way to get women on the ballot and now we are taking our fate back to the political parties.
We have lost affirmative action; we have lost the bills. Legislation would have been the easiest way to get women on the ballot and now we are taking our fate back to the political parties. Parties have to nominate you. No woman can go through independent candidacy because we don’t even have the funds. The major concern now is ‘how can political parties create more space for women?’. Until that is done, there is going to be a huge problem and it is a huge concern for me, having put in so much effort, so much work and the number of years that we have already put in and this is where we are again. Time is just a huge problem for us right now. Our best bet and the shortest way is to rely on political parties to give us some slots.
On the biggest success recorded by WIPF
Apart from all the other works we have put in place like building capacity of women, I think our mentoring is one that cannot be beaten by anyone; the record is there. We set up an academy for young girls and the young girls have joined political parties, some of them are already contesting elections within their local council and some of them are also vying for State Assembly seats. It gives me so much joy because it is grooming younger people to take over from the older people. Maybe if some of us were mentored, some of these things we are talking about now would have been solved because people from our generation didn’t really come out to contest election unlike what we are getting now. Yes, I think our greatest success is the academy, the product of the academy and what we are doing with it.
I think our mentoring is one that cannot be beaten by anyone; the record is there. We set up an academy for young girls and the young girls have joined political parties, some of them are already contesting elections within their local council and some of them are also vying for State Assembly seats.
On strategies the women in WIPF are adopting to enable them win elective seats as 2023 elections approach
What we have done is to prepare our women to be able to join political parties of their choice and contest. Even at the last FCT elections, women from WIPF contested. Majorly, it is not that the women are not prepared, the women are very much prepared to contest and ready to win but the major problem and that is where we do not have control over, is nomination of candidates because of the lack of internal party democracy. You would expect that in every political party, there’s a process. But that is not the case. At every point in time, they come up with new strategies like this idea of consensus and most times, it is working against our programmes and our plans that have already been put in place. The last convention of APC that took place, we had our women everywhere from different States and different zones ready to contest and win but unfortunately, the party came up with consensus and that didn’t favour our women.
So, the problem for me is not the women not being able to come out to contest, it is the lack of internal party democracy that is depriving women from contesting and that is a huge problem for us. We have built a massive followership of women voters, we have encouraged women to pick up their Permanent Voters Card, but it is worrisome because if women don’t emerge as candidates, then we have only worked for more men to be voted by women because when they don’t see the women on the ballot, they are forced to vote for men. That’s a sad thing for me. It is something that is beyond what we can do as an organisation and that’s why I say that legislation would have been the easiest and quickest way for us to have more women in governance.
Final Words
We are not going to be deterred. From the bills that were rejected at the National Assembly, one good thing came out of it. I think it was women being able to work together and show concern on issues. For the 10 days we were at the gate of the National Assembly occupying and protesting, we had new women coming out to join every day. There was no day we had less than a thousand women and every day, the number kept increasing. It has really helped us now to build a network of women, a mass organisation of women that we were able to gather from the Local Governments to the State level because the protest also happened across the States.
Now, they have helped us to say that these issues are our issues and women are ready to take ownership of the issues. I think we should build more on that and use our mass strength and our numbers to determine who would lead us. First, by identifying and having an idea of who a leader should be and what actually we are looking out for in a leader and be able to vote for people that supported us and use our strength to vote out people that didn’t support us. It is something that we can do and the moment we are able to achieve this, it will make other parliamentarians to sit up and know that issues concerning women are issues that must be respected and voted for at any time, positively, at any time such bills come up again.