Since the year 1999 that democracy returned to Nigeria, women have been substantially discriminated against in terms of the leadership heights attained by them in the political space. Though women make up 49% of registered voters, unfortunately, their composition in the Nigeria political leadership space has been less than 10% most of the time. Of the 36 governorship positions in Nigeria, only twice by chance, have women been opportune to become governors. At National Assembly, similar reality.
1. Socio-Cultural Factor: In the traditional culture of most African countries, women are stereotyped not to be in the same class with their men counterpart. 2. Political Factor: Men have ascribed the political space to be their natural space. Among the political factors identified are the following: fear, complexity, finance etc. 3. Intellectual Factor -The female is made to believe that they are not capable mentally to deal with the task in politics which is not necessarily so.
Our approach is poised to increase the competence of women to be able to compete intellectually, with vast knowledge of the nature of political space and lack of fear of stereotype. This will increase the participation of women in politics based on competence and not pity as well as the ability to make stronger impact based on the leadership skills acquired on the programme.
At the end of the project, 300 young women would have acquired adequate knowledge required to function effectively in the political leadership space of Nigeria. The programme will further position them to be able to compete favourably for leadership positions with effect from the next political cycle by 2023. The participants would have the opportunity to choose from the three specialized paths; Executive Skills Development Path, Legislative Process Development Path or Party Management/Admin.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
