Gender Equality and Political Participation; an Assessment of AIT’s Influence on Women Political Awareness and Participation in Enugu State

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1        Background of the Study

Women are underrepresented in most levels of government, as a result have made little progress in attaining political power in legislative bodies, or stamping equal relevance alongside their male counterparts in different political spheres in Nigeria. Consequentially, they have not achieved the decades old target of attaining relevance politically as set by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Resolution in 1990. Equal Opportunities Commission (2003) in reference to United Nation (1995), recommended targets for increasing the proportion of women in Leadership positions to 30% by 1995 and 50% by 2000. Historical evidences in many societies, both during the ancient and modern periods support the idea of male dominance over their female folks in many spheres of human endeavours (Aweofeso and Odeyemi, 2014). The trail of the female gender humiliation, manipulation and marginalization through a number of culturally biased practices has culminated into systematic institutionalization of male superiority over female in all sphere of life-socio-culturally, economically and politically. From the assertion above, it is evident that men play lead role in the political sphereAina (2012); Soetan (2014);Agbalajobi (2010).In 2015 the Deputy Director Gender Division of  the Nigeria’s electoral body Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), stated that fourteen (14) females out of three hundred and sixty lawmakers were elected into the House of Representatives and eight (8) women won as Senators in total of one hundred an nine senators. Again, out of the out of the fourteen (14) candidates that contested for the presidential position in 2015 general election, the only woman who contested found herself in the 12th position (Akor, 2015).The struggle of women dates back to several decades ago when women like Amina of Zaria, Madam Tinubu of Lagos, Olufumilayo Ransom Kute of Abeokuta, Margaret Ekpo and Hajji of Gabon Swabia among others who fought to bring pride to women in Nigeria’s history show that good number of women have their interest in contributing to the general development of this country Okafor (2010). According to Ayabam (2013), several factors, including funding, women perception of politics in Nigeria, political violence during election, lack of self-confidence on the part of women, women marginalization in party leadership, illiteracy and low educational status for the girl child, cultural and religious discrimination have been identified as reasons for poor participation in social-political activities.Munir S, et al (2014), media and politics go hand in hand as both depend on each other for their respective functioning. This accession explains the significance of media for political gains. Media is a potent tool for women political participation; they can set agenda and make voice of women to be heard through programs like Gender Agenda on AIT and so on. Gender Agenda, is women empowerment/political talk show on Africa Independent Television (AIT) seeks to address issues of state, Nationhood, Transformation, rule of law and psycho-social perspective of the role of women in governance and policy making. Gender and Youth Development is also another programme on AIT to champion the course of women. It is a female parliamentary programme which attracts participants from across the thirty six states of the federation aimed at attaining the affirmative action in favour of women. Focusing on Enugu state, this study sets out to examine how the media can be used to access and accelerate women participation in political programs and activities in Nigeria; as the media has been proven to be one of the vital factors through which gender equality in politics can be pursued (Nwankwo, 1996).