By Zikora Ibeh
On the eve of the celebration of International Women’s Day 2022, the brutal murder of Oluwabamise Ayawole, a twenty-two-year-old Nigerian girl who had gone missing for days after boarding a Lagos State-owned Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) was conveyed to a shocked public. This is not an isolated occurrence. In the past year alone, chilling tales of rape, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, kidnapping, and gory killing of women and minors for money rituals have featured as daily headlines on the news.
Thus, as the world marks International Women’s Day this year with the theme ‘‘gender equality today for a sustainable future’’, there is hardly any cause to merrily celebrate the day in Nigeria as recent events bordering on the safety, empowerment, and equitable treatment of women and girls in the country calls to question Nigeria’s commitment to improving its poor record on gender issues.
Against this doleful background, the recent rejection by the National Assembly of five notable pro-equality bills sponsored by female lawmakers and gender advocates as part of the process of the ongoing review of the country’s constitutional elements on March 01, 2022, represents a missed opportunity by the constituents of the country’s legislative body to restore confidence to the dwindling hopes of oppressed women in Nigeria. If passed, the bill would have promoted affirmative action for women in politics and society, including guaranteed women the right to confer citizenship to husbands of foreign origins by virtue of marriage.
The rejection of these progressive bills was a rude awakening for Nigerian women that the gatekeepers of patriarchy, ensconced in the power structures of society including a male-dominated National Assembly, will not readily accede to breaking political and social biases that have kept women underrepresented at the high tables of decision making. Suffice to stress that all these developments only reinforce the extent and depth of an agelong oppression of women in Nigeria. Century-old customs, gender stereotypes, and traditions rooted in a distant past are combined with modern-day power structures to uphold continuous exclusion and discrimination of Nigerian women in society.
It is a why a few days shy of the start of women’s month this year, a Federal High Court in Abuja upheld the contentious regulation 127 of the Nigeria Police Force that not only forbids unmarried female police officers from getting pregnant but also recommends dismissal from the institution upon contravention. By this retrogressive judgment, the court of justice not only approved a host of discriminations suffered by working women like Police Constable, Omolola Olajide, who was dismissed for getting pregnant out of wedlock, it also relinquished a historical opportunity to devalorise male hegemony in the police force and other security agencies in Nigeria.
The consequence of these manifestations of gender imparity is that the bulk of Nigerian women continues to live under the heels of patriarchy which manifests either as phallic narcissism or institutionalized gender oppression.
In another perspective, poor government policies such as the privatization of essential services such as healthcare, access to affordable and clean water continue to widen the gender poverty gap and suffering of women in Nigeria who disproportionately bear the brunt of childcare and spend much of their time domestic duties and uncompensated work.
One such example is the attempt by the state authorities in Nigeria to privatise water resources. According to “Our Water Our Right Coalition” – an initiative of the Corporate Accountability of Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) in alliance with Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) and other groups, “privatization of water would be a direct attack on women who need clean affordable water for their hygiene and homes”.
This is no doubt true not only of water privatisation but also every other anti-poor government policy, including increase in electricity tariff, fuel price hike, education, and health commercialization, demolition of homes and informal settlements across areas of the country. If there are deducible conclusions from the afore discussed issues – it is that women are major victims of adverse economic policies and unhealthy social conditions.
Hence, the reason why they must be drafted into decision-making and nation-building processes. Any roadmap towards improving the living and economic conditions of individuals in society must provide answers to questions of what inclusive policies and governance programs can resolve the many challenges encountered by women in society. In fact, the liberation of the woman is inextricably linked with the liberation of the whole of society. To be clear, this is not to dismiss the various examples of Nigerian women breaking the glass ceilings in different endeavors.
However, notwithstanding some of these notable accomplishments, the status of women as a collective has not fundamentally changed from that of second-class citizens. Whether successful or not, the undeniable truth is that the Nigerian woman suffers oppression and discrimination of all kinds. To affirm otherwise would be to live in fool’s paradise. In every way, society’s power structure continues to be skewed and rigged against the woman whether economically empowered or not. As poor economically disempowered women, they are the floor mats of men to be despised, useful only as breeders of the next generation, and generally treated as slaves.
As successful and high-flying women, their successes are often regarded with skepticism and suspicion. To reiterate, there is hardly any cause to merrily celebrate women’s day today as the existing realities of many women and girls living in Nigeria today negate the status quo for gender equality. But as they say, better later than never. The current setback notwithstanding, gender advocates, lawmakers, and state actors must continue striving to get Nigeria on track towards achieving the objectives of narrowing gender inequality and improving women’s representation in governance and decision-making spaces. Only then can we celebrate a true society of individuals ‘’breaking the bias’’ against all odds.
NB: Zikora Ibeh of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), writes in from Lagos
