Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The Gender Strategy Advancement International (GSAI), a civil society organisation focused on women’s political participation, has sharply criticised what it described as the “deliberate exclusion” of women from ongoing party primaries ahead of the 2027 general elections. Adaora Sydney‑Jack, executive director of GSAI, told journalists in Abuja on Sunday, May 17, 2026, that political parties have maintained structures that systematically prevent women from emerging as candidates during primary elections across the country. “The troubling reality is that the primaries currently ongoing across parts of Nigeria have shown little or no meaningful shift from the entrenched norm,” Sydney‑Jack said. “Across multiple political spaces, women continue to report being sidelined, pressured to step down for male aspirants, excluded from strategic negotiations, or subtly threatened with political ostracisation should they insist on contesting.”
Sydney‑Jack identified several specific barriers that women face during the candidate nomination process, including exorbitant nomination fees, political intimidation, monetised delegate systems, and exclusion from informal negotiation spaces where candidacies are often determined. According to her, the exclusion is not accidental but deeply institutional, driven by opaque consensus arrangements, elite patronage networks, and patriarchal power structures embedded within political parties. “These realities create a democratic bottleneck that excludes women before the general election even begins,” she stated. The GSAI executive director noted that despite years of advocacy and constitutional guarantees of equality, women continue to be relegated to ceremonial positions within parties, serving as “women leaders” without consequential influence over delegate selection, zoning arrangements, financing, or ticket allocation.
To address the exclusion, Sydney‑Jack called for enforceable accountability mechanisms against political parties that fail to meet affirmative action targets for women. “Possible sanctions or incentives could include reduced public funding access, mandatory quota compliance, incentives for gender‑balanced tickets, or electoral penalties for persistent exclusion,” she said. She noted that several democracies have already implemented such measures successfully. Drawing comparisons with other African countries, Sydney‑Jack pointed to Rwanda, Senegal, Namibia, and South Africa, which have significantly improved women’s political representation through constitutional quotas, parity laws, and gender‑balanced candidate systems. “Countries that have intentionally expanded women’s political participation have reaped measurable developmental dividends,” she said, warning that Nigeria risks democratic and economic stagnation if political parties fail to undertake inclusive reforms.
Sydney‑Jack also noted the paradox of women’s political participation in Nigeria, observing that women constitute a significant percentage of the country’s voting population and grassroots mobilisation structures. “In Nigeria, women participate massively as mobilisers, campaigners, financiers at grassroots levels, and voting blocs,” she said. “Yet, when candidacy and power‑sharing emerge, women are reduced to ‘women leader’ structures without consequential influence.” She called on the National Assembly, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and political parties to institutionalise quota systems, transparent primary elections, and reforms that would make party processes more inclusive ahead of the 2027 elections.
The GSAI’s criticism comes amid contrasting signals from the electoral commission. In March 2026, INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan warned political parties that any primary election that sidelined women would fail the commission’s regulatory standards. “Any primary that excludes women fails the test of our new regulatory standards,” Amupitan stated, noting that the commission is committed to enforcing compliance with constitutional and statutory provisions that guarantee non‑discrimination. Section 84 of the Electoral Act, 2026, requires parties to conduct transparent primaries and submit names of candidates elected in a democratic process, but the law does not explicitly mandate gender quotas. The commission has also set a May 30, 2026, deadline for the conclusion of all party primaries.
However, reports from ongoing primaries suggest that women’s participation remains marginal. In the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party has implemented a 50% discount on nomination forms for women, youth, and persons with disabilities. Yet, analysis of primary results across states shows that female aspirants remain exceptions rather than the rule. The Katsina State APC primary for the Bindawa/Mani Federal Constituency produced one female winner, Jamila Abd‑Mani, who polled 24,989 votes against her male opponent’s 1,256 votes. She was the only female aspirant in the race. Similarly, the APC primary for the Oshodi‑Isolo Federal Constituency II in Lagos saw Angela Yinka Akintunde contest as the only female aspirant against nine male candidates. The party has also cleared a female aspirant, Dr. Ngozi Okafor, to contest the Ideato North Federal Constituency seat in Imo State.
Despite these isolated successes, data on women’s representation remains bleak. According to a March 2026 letter signed by the Forum of Female Deputy Governors, Nigeria currently has only nine female deputy governors, four women in the Senate, seventeen women in the House of Representatives, and forty‑eight women across all State Houses of Assembly. Thirteen states have no female legislators at all, leaving overall women’s participation at just four to five percent nationally. A United Nations Women report released in March 2026 warned that Nigeria’s democracy is at risk as women hold just 3.9 percent of parliamentary seats, one of the lowest rates anywhere in the world. The country ranks 180th out of 185 countries in the Inter‑Parliamentary Union’s global ranking of women in parliament, sitting below war‑torn nations that have nonetheless found the political will to include women in governance. The global average stands at 26.9 percent, while Rwanda, a country that emerged from genocide, holds 61 percent female parliamentary representation.
The female deputy governors, in their letter to the APC National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda, proposed a minimum of 35 percent female representation in State Houses of Assembly, at least one female House of Representatives member per Senatorial District, at least one female Senator per state, a minimum of eighteen female deputy governors, and support for at least one female governor in each geopolitical zone. “Expanding women’s participation strengthens our voter base, enriches governance by bringing diverse perspectives into decision‑making, and positions our party as forward‑looking and responsive to modern leadership realities,” the letter read.
The GSAI’s criticism also follows a broader advocacy push for the Reserved Seats for Women Bill, a constitutional amendment that would create additional seats in the National and State Houses of Assembly to be contested exclusively by women. The bill, which gained momentum in March 2025 with endorsements from President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, remains stalled in the National Assembly. It is one of forty‑four constitutional amendment bills that have not progressed. The bill’s supporters argue that reserved seats are a temporary affirmative action measure designed to jump‑start women’s political participation in a system that has historically excluded them.
As the APC, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and other parties continue their primary elections across the country, women’s rights advocates are watching closely. The exclusion of women from party primaries, as documented by GSAI and other organisations, raises fundamental questions about the health of Nigeria’s democracy. When the mechanisms for selecting candidates are themselves exclusionary, the resulting elected bodies inevitably fail to reflect the diversity of the population. Sydney‑Jack summarised the stakes succinctly: “Primaries in Nigeria are not merely democratic exercises; they are often transactional arenas shaped by financial leverage, elite patronage, and deeply gendered power relations.” Until those arenas are reformed, women will continue to be shown the door before the contest has even begun.
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