The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Female Parliamentarians Association (ECOFPA) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to support its campaign for increased women participation in electoral processes across the West African sub-region. The Association’s First Vice President, Honourable Aisatta Daffe, who led a delegation on an advocacy visit to the Commission’s
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Female Parliamentarians Association (ECOFPA) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to support its campaign for increased women participation in electoral processes across the West African sub-region.
The Association’s First Vice President, Honourable Aisatta Daffe, who led a delegation on an advocacy visit to the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja, the nation’s capital, observed that it is not heart warming that despite the fact that women constitute more than 52 per cent of the general population in West Africa, they make up only 14 per cent of the parliamentarians in the sub-region.
Daffe said the association was particularly uncomfortable with that a huge country like Nigeria has only six per cent of its women in government unlike Senegal which has a more impressive representation, with women making up 42 percent membership of its national parliament.
“The statistics for the sub-region revealed that Nigeria, which is such a huge country, has only six percent of women involved in decision making or government while Senegal has up to 42 percent of its women involved in the parliament”, she said.
This she notd, has led to the development of a Gender and Election Strategic Framework and Action Plan, which the association believes would help address the identified challenges.
“So, we are here today,” she said, “to present the document to the INEC Chairman, which we hope will facilitate a better representation of women in the region”, while imploring the Commission to support their vision of achieving a 30 percent regional average of women representation in elective offices across West Africa
Expressing the hope that the document would serve as a guide to Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) in the sub-region and other public institutions in integrating gender issues in their processes and activities, Daffe also pleaded with the Commission to facilitate the mainstreaming of gender issues into the country’s electoral cycle.
Responding, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said the Commission was committed to increased women participation in the electoral process.
Yakubu, who is also the President, ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC), told the parliamentarians that INEC was not only at the forefront of gender advocacy in the electoral process, but had also imbibed the principles of fair gender representation in practice.
He said, “It is always a great pleasure to have female parliamentarians from our sub-region visit the Commission. This is very important because for the first time in the history of our sub-region, all the 15 countries are today democracies. Gone are the days when we had one government in the capital and another one in the bush. All the governments are now in their capital cities and are democracies”.
“I want to assure the delegation, particularly Madam Aishatta, that INEC is a gender-friendly Commission. Out of the 11 National Commissioners that we have at the Commission at present, three are women: a Pharmacist, a Lawyer and a Professor. In addition, the Commission’s secretary is a woman. Also, INEC has a workforce of over 16,000 staff and women constitute 32 percent.”
He further said,: “INEC already has a Gender Policy and we have been working with political parties in Nigeria for greater participation of women in politics and in elective offices. It may interest you to know that we have 68 political parties in Nigeria today and five of them have women as chairmen.”
The INEC Chairman assured the visitors that the Commission would push for increased women participation in the electoral process, just as he pledged to also extend the advocacy to the West African Sub-region.
“In my role as President of ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC), I am also going to be your advocate in the sub-region. This advocacy will continue beyond Nigeria.”, he affirmed.
The high point of the visit was the presentation of the ECOWAS Gender Election and Strategic Framework to the INEC Chairman by Dr. Sintiki Ugbe, of the ECOWAS Commission, Abuja.
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