Proportional Representation as Sustainable Path to True Gender Mainstreaming

From a wider global perspective, Uche Anichukwu argues that while special seats for women bill is not a bad idea, proportional representation is the sustainable path to true gender mainstream.

In May 2017, former Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of Senate Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ike Ekweremadu interfaced with a delegation of the Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement (YIAGA Africa), which was on a Not Too Young to Run Bill advocacy visit to his National Assembly office. While assuring them that he would work to ensure that the bill succeeded in the constitution review process, he said, left to him, age barriers should be entirely scrapped.

“For many years now, we have said that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. But as far as I am concerned, tomorrow has come and people should be judged by their competence, integrity, and capacity, not their biological age. That is the global trend and we cannot be an exception,” he said, citing Emmanuel Macron, who had just been elected a few months earlier as president of France, a world power.

However, Ekweremadu also had sad news for them: the eventual passage of the Not Too Young to Run Bill would still not guarantee youth mainstreaming in politics.

According to him, it would take about several hundred million naira to effectively run for a National Assembly seat, wondering how many young Nigerians could afford such outrageous election costs. He reasoned that while the Not Too Young To Run would be a step forward, other factors, such as funding, could reduce it to a piece of kola nut in a toothless mouth.

As far as he was concerned, beyond the tokenism of the Not Too Young to Run Bill, the real deal would be for the Nigerian youths to commence the push for proportional representation immediately after the bill became law, saying such electoral system was the only guarantee that disadvantaged segments of the polity – youths, women, persons with disability (PWD), among others would be properly mainstreamed, politically.

Ultimately, the bill was passed later in 2017 to alter relevant Sections of the constitution to reduce the age qualification for president from 40 to 35, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly membership from 30 to 25. The late former president, Muhammadu Buhari, signed it into law on May 31, 2018.

However, after two election cycles (2019 and 2023), not much has changed for Nigerian youths in this regard. There has only been very marginal progress. According to a July 2023 report published by YIAGA Africa, youth candidacy plummeted from 34 per cent recorded in 2019 in the wake of the pro-youth constitution amendment to 28.6 per cent in the 2023 election cycle.

Of the 15,336 candidates sponsored by 18 political parties in 2023, 4,398 were youths, with 43.2 per cent of them between ages 25 and 30, hence direct beneficiaries of the Not Too Young to Run struggles. However, it did not translate to electoral victories. For instance, only 1.17 per cent of the 993 State Assembly seats were won by youths under 30 years and only two out of 360 House of Representatives seats were won by youths under 30.

Today, the buzz is around the Special Seats for Nigerian Women Bill, a proposal to alter the constitution to create 37 additional seats in the House of Representatives, 37 seats in the Senate, and three each in each of the 36 State Houses of Assembly (totaling 108 seats).

It is, however, noteworthy that the proposed law contains a sunset clause, which seeks to have these additional seats in place for 16 years in order to address the abysmally low women representation in parliament, which is currently as low as about four per cent.

Laudable as this sounds, it is still all tokenism – just as the Not Too Young to Run constitutional provisions. Whereas it could sound plausible on the surface, it does not guarantee anything, especially when it is a sunset constitutional provision. After 16 years, what next?

Sometime in 2018, Nigeria placed a very distant 168th position in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) ranking of women representation in national parliaments (particularly the lower chamber) worldwide, Nigeria has plunged since then to 177th position in the latest IPU ranking published in January 2026. Nigeria is only better than nations like Tonga, Maldives, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Oman, Tuvalu, Yemen, and a few other unranked countries.

Conversely, Rwanda has maintained the first position for many years, with women currently occupying 51 of the 80 seats, representing 68.3 per cent. The closest African country to Rwanda is South Africa where women occupy 179 or 44.8 per cent of the 400 national parliamentary seats. Namibia placed 22nd, Ethiopia 23rd, Angola placed 25th, and Senegal 26th.

A common feature or difference maker among most of the high-ranking countries is proportional representation, as opposed to first past the post or preferential representation where the winner takes all.

Indeed, findings by the Electoral Reform Society, a UK-based independent organisation leading the campaign for proportional representation electoral system, fair votes and democratic rights since 1884 buttresses this.

“Proportional representation is the most popular form of democracy for countries in the world today. Proportional representation isn’t one electoral system though, it’s the simple idea that the strength of each faction in parliament should closely match their popularity in the country. For many people, that is what living in a democracy means.

“There are over 130 countries, which use either a Proportional Representation or a mixed system to elect their lower chamber across the world. Less than 55 use the First Past The Post system, a minority of countries globally, one of which is the United Kingdom. Those who still use First Past the Post tend to have it as a result of being former British colonies.”

For clarity, unlike the first past the post system where a candidate/party that polls, say 500,000 votes in a senatorial race, is declared winner, while a first runner up/party, which secures 499,000 votes goes home with nothing, proportional representation distributes seats to political parties in proportion to the percentage of their total votes across the country. For instance, if the All Progressives Congress (APC) garnered 100,000 votes and the All progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) garnered 70,000 votes, while Labour Party (LP) mustered 30,000 votes across Nigeria in a 200-member parliament, it would naturally translate to about 100 seats for APC, 70 seats for APGA and 30 seats for LP.

Meanwhile, it is useful to add here that to get to where they are today as the world’s number one in women representation in national parliaments, Rwandans amended their constitution in 2003 to expressly provide for a minimum of 30 per cent quota for women in all the decision-making bodies and organs, including the national parliament and leadership of political parties.

In the same light, Nigeria cannot claim to seek to confer any special political advantage on any gender under the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Since Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) provides against any form of discrimination against any citizen by the reason of his or her community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion, or political opinion, it becomes imperative to firstly alter that section to provide for the exception to guarantee the 35 per cent Affirmative Action.

It means that after the National Assembly must have legislated proportional legislation into being, women are guaranteed at least 35 per cent of seats allocated to their respective parties based on their electoral performance.  So, with the amendment to Section 42 of the constitution to affect the Affirmative Action, at least 35 per cent of the seats must constitutionally go to women. If this is done, gender mainstreaming will also become a major electioneering issue because any party promising to do more than the constitutional benchmark stands to get more support from women.

However, proportional representation is not necessary just about women political empowerment.  The system will also help to cure the rampant carpet crossing in parliament. This is because in proportional representation, parliamentary seats belong to political parties, not to individuals. So, if you leave your party, you automatically abdicate the seat because they gave it to you in the first place.

Importantly, it is the most potent path to mainstreaming politically disadvantaged groups such as youths, persons living with disability, and other minority groups. Since it is the party that runs for parliamentary seats, they can guarantee the allocation of certain percentages of the seats secured to certain demographics.

Furthermore, proportional representation increases the opportunity for smaller parties to secure seats in parliament because each party will get a piece of the cake proportional to the percentage of votes it garnered at the polls.  This will equally make it quite difficult for one political party to dominate a parliament.

It would be delusional to expect the current National Assembly to legislate proportional representation into existence. Proportional representation will be a major shift in Nigeria’s electoral system. So, it is expectedly something that would require a lot of awareness, consultations, and conversations. The onus is, therefore, on the parliament, media, and the civil society to rise to the occasion to champion the transition to this system if the nation is truly committed to the political empowerment of Nigerian women, youths and other disadvantaged groups.