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ADDRESSING THE GENDER ISSUES
Women have the same intrinsic worth as men
With a score of 0.649 per cent to occupy 124th position, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) ‘Global Gender Gap Report 2025,’ Nigeria is trending towards having a majority male population with all its implications. But there are also many positive developments across economic parity indicators as Nigeria’s labour-force participation rose from 89.9 per cent to 95.6 per cent with female participation growing to its highest recorded levels. However, the report also noted that “Nigeria’s performance fails to advance in the other three sub-indexes, with the most significant regression occurring in political empowerment (-2.9 points) due to diminished representation of women in ministerial positions, which declined from 17.6 per cent in 2024 to 8.8 per cent in 2025.”
If women representation in political appointments is abysmal in Nigeria, the situation is worse for those who seek elective offices both at the federal and in practically all the 36 states. In the current National Assembly for instance, women occupy just four of the 109 senatorial seats, representing 2.7 per cent of membership while in the House of Representatives, 17 of the 360 seats, representing 4.7 per cent of membership. That has been the pattern even though women fared a little better at the beginning of the current democratic dispensation. Questions must therefore be asked about their declining fortunes in the political arena.
Three decades after the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women, not only is Nigeria far from the 35 per cent affirmative action but our women also face the challenge of patriarchy. A Gender Equality Bill was once rejected by senators on grounds that “enacting a law to accord women equal rights with men was un-African and anti-religious”. Meanwhile, women in Nigeria have made their mark in the economic arena which men used to dominate. The same with international appointments: From the United Nations where a Nigerian woman is the Deputy Secretary General to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) led by another Nigerian woman.
The warped notion that women are inferior to men has been an issue in Nigeria for a long time. Discriminated against at every level, women and girls traditionally have limited access to education, ownership of land and assets in Nigeria. And they are denied equal treatment in inheritance rights, human resources development and sustainable economic growth. But nowhere is this discrimination more prominent than in the political space. Yet, “advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal,” according to the WEF Managing Director, Ms. Saadia Zahidi. “The evidence is clear. Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative and more resilient economic progress.”
The 2025 Global Gender Gap (GGG) report covered 148 economies and revealed both encouraging momentum and persistent structural barriers facing women worldwide. WEF said the GGG index annually benchmarked the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions, which are economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. And it has remained the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time since 2006 when it was launched.
As we have consistently argued on this page, gender equality is not just a human rights issue, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development and a peaceful, prosperous world. Circumscribing access to opportunities that ultimately empowers women and girls is counterproductive. Women are not the objects of pleasure of men or property to be used and disposed of. Indeed, women have the same intrinsic worth as men. Therefore, any custom that seeks to treat them as inferior to men cannot and should not stand.
