WOMEN REPRESENTATION IN NIGERIAN POLITICS: A CRITICAL EVALUATION

Abstract

This work examined women representation in Nigerian politics with emphasis on elective positions, from 1999 to 2015. The specific objectives of this work are to find out the level of improvement in women representation in Nigerian politics and identified the factors that contributed to the low representation and participation of women in Nigerian politics. The liberal feminist theory was adopted as the framework for analysis. In the methodology, data for the study were generated using secondary sources and analyzed with an aggregate of qualitative and quantitative method. The study discovered that there is no significant improvement in the level of women representation in politics in the elective positions from 1999 to 2015. In addition, the issues of political violence, cultural and religious factors, poor funding, high rate of illiteracy, problem of internal party democracy, etc, are the challenges to women representation andparticipation in Nigerian politics. The paper recommends the need for political will towards the implementation of affirmative action; provision of adequate securities before, during and after election; effective political education and socialization of the public, abrogation of repugnant laws and any  discriminatory practices etc.