March 8 every year is observed globally as International Women’s Day (IWD). It is also known as the UN Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Women In Leadership: Achieving An Equal Future In A COVID-19 World”. And according to reports, it is aimed at highlighting the achievements and challenges confronting women across the world, particularly in this COVID-19 period when they are said to be experiencing a rise in domestic violence and sexual assault.
The 2021 IWD theme is further driven by the slogan: ‘Choose To Challenge’ or #ChoosetoChallenge. And are women choosing to challenge; especially here in Nigeria!
In the past two weeks, there had been rallies, speeches and visitations to the authorities at the different arms of government by some leading women’s rights advocacy groups which are challenging the status quo in the allotment of public offices between the genders.
Responding to one such group, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), recently, the House of Representatives Committee on Women In Parliament revealed that a bill had already been initiated to demand, at least, a female senator from each state. The Committee chair, Mrs. Taiwo Oluga, said that that there were only 12 women in the 360-member House while the Senate had 8 females out of 109 members.
She then suggested that women should be made to constitute half of the members of the lower house regardless of how the political parties and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) choose to work it out; failing which 35 per cent affirmative action should apply.
The visiting advocacy group had earlier requested that the nation’s constitution be amended to stipulate that the president, governors, Senate president, speaker and state assemblies be deputised by someone of a different gender to reflect the true spirit of non-discrimination as stated in the constitution.
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was also on hand to encourage women during the IWD celebration. He said that, given the opportunity and support, there was no limit to what a woman could achieve. The state chief executive enjoined Lagos men to continue to support, love, respect, value and cherish their women and also allow them more room at the very top.
But are the men likely to take heed? According to Mrs. Mojisola Alli-Macaulay, chairman, Committee on Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in Sanwo-Olu’s state legislature, while speaking at a 2021 IWD event: “A lot of men already know what they do to women who are politicians; therefore, they will not encourage their wives to join politics.
“All you see women do is to dance at campaign rallies and end up becoming women leaders of political parties at the ward and local government level.”
That may be in Lagos. Here in Rivers State, what the country and its component states are now being urged to initiate is already in practise. In fact, with Governor Nyesom Wike’s choice of a female deputy, Dr Ipalibo Harry Banigo, in 2015 and his subsequent insistence that local government chairmen be deputised by women, the state is clearly far ahead of all others on this matter.
Again, Rivers State already has a female senator, Mrs. Betty Apiafi, who, like her two brother-senators, is clearly holding her own in the Red Chamber despite being of the opposition party.
Unfortunately, though, while women can be said to enjoy a fair presence in the state’s executive and judicial arms, the situation in the state legislature where there is only one female member appears rather embarrassing. We pray and hope that this will soon change if only more women are encouraged to file out and contest state constituency seats in 2023.
The Rivers example surely surpasses the 35 per cent affirmative action and serves to launch more women onto the political big stage. This is because any woman who has been able to serve as deputy LG council chairman for three years can qualify to clinch a chairman, state legislator, federal lawmaker or even commissioner’s slot any day.
I strongly wish that our women are encouraged to first slug it out with their male counterparts in primary elections before being considered as deputies. Who said some of them cannot win chairmanship primaries and go on to pick their male deputies? Surely, a situation where these women seat complacently and await the men to finish with the initial contests and come to pick them as deputies can only suggest that they are comfortable with always playing a spare-tyre role. And that is obviously not what this year’s IWD theme is about.
Unlike any of the recent IWD celebrations, this year’s outing appears to be enjoying considerable momentum in Nigeria. While it may be logical to attribute it to the euphoria generated by Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s successful assumption of duty as Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) exactly one week before the Day and the impact of, not just a woman but a Black, becoming the first of such to be sworn in as the Vice President of the United States barely three months ago; I am rather tempted to think that it is mainly because of gender positioning for the 2023 elections.
This submission is actually based on my observation that the rallies, speeches and advocacy trips had dwelt more on the aspect of the theme which espouses the demand that women be allowed to aspire to top leadership positions. Surely, not much was canvassed on the main issues against which the #ChoosetoChallenge slogan is geared to drive. For example, such issues as early betrothals, forced marriages, domestic violence, sexual abuse, women trafficking, ill-treatment and divorce on suspicion of infertility, denial of inheritance rights, despicable widow practices like the mourning ritual of solitary confinement, and the oath-taking practice of drinking bath water from a husband’s corpse.
Let me join other well-meaning male compatriots, not chauvinists, to congratulate Nigerian women on the successful celebration of this year’s IWD with its wonderful theme and powerful slogan. Women Oye!

By: Ibelema Jumbo