Nigerian Women Politicians use Twice the Efforts of the Men to Make It – Ngukwase Surma

Zainab Tanimu

Kaduna, North-West, NIGERIA

Firebrand and determined Ngukwase Surma is the Executive Director of Connecting Gender COGEN.

 A Kaduna based Non-Governmental Organization(NGO) concerned with the burning desire to ensuring that women make their mark in the political space.

The political space rather than expanding for the Nigerian Women Politicians is said to be getting narrower. A narrative the COGEN Boss said needed to be changed.

This concern was raised during a reflection seminar with the media tagged: “Breaking new grounds in the Advocacy to Increase Women’s Political Participation and Representation in Governance held in Kaduna.

 Being part of the struggles when sometimes back in 2011  she contested for the House of Representative ticket,under Buruku Constituency,  Benue state. The terrain she said is tough for the Nigerian woman politician. Women politicians she maintained would need to put in twice the efforts of the men for them to break through their dominance and remain relevant in the political struggles.

 “The challenges of a woman politician are double because you have to pick a position that is ‘dominated’ by men.

In Nigerian politics there are many hindrances that do not give the woman politician the opportunity to forge ahead. Women generally do not have money.Surma said. 

According to her, not only has Connecting Gender impacted on the political space but also engages in other activities.

“There are several things that we have done, one which is working with women in politics, which has been one of the projects connecting gender has worked on over the years and is the reason why we are here today.

“We have worked with women in politics since 1999 and we have worked at different levels doing community mobilization as well as organizing trainings for the women.  There are several other projects that we have supported. Like supporting women with posters whereby they don’t have cash.

”We have created links with the media so that candidates who have emerged can use that platform to campaign to reach out looking for votes’

As to how successful Connecting Gender has been in its work? Surma has this to say.

“lt has been very successful.  I am saying this based on the fact that we have worked with communities and we teach them how to link up with government agencies where programmes were being planned for them. The one with the World Bank concerning the issue of energy, water, and that was an emerging community then and so we linked them up with the people who elected them. We linked them up to water resources. So, generally l would say that we are quite successful because the impact we have set to achieve, we have achieved.

“Currently,we are tracking the ‘school feeding’ programme in Kaduna south district and l would say that programme has been very successful.

Firstly,getting the community to be aware of what is happening in their communities and begin to take more interest.” She said.

Answering question as to what she identifies to be the major problem of women politicians since the terrain is not new to her, she explained.

“That’s a very deep question. I would say, one of the things militating against women active participation in politics in Nigeria is simply caused by society driven by patriarchal attitudes and thoughts as such does not leave space for women to come in.

“At the terrain it becomes so tough. For me, l would say that has been what has been preventing Nigerian women getting into elective positions but when you discuss that and go a little further you discover that underneath it all, it’s about support and support could be in various forms.

 “One of such critical support is that of funding. It’s a bitter nut to be a politician without financial base. Women financial base is not very strong. I am not talking about woman herself having the fund but to have around her queen makers that would be able to support her and get her into the office. There are a lot of men who didn’t have money but were able to get into offices because there were king makers who made it possible. I suppose we need to have queen makers.”

The common notion that women are problem to themselves when it comes to elective positions she had reacted to saying, patriarchal attitude drives such comments.

 “I think that is a patriarchal expression to say that women are problems to themselves but that is what everybody says but men fight themselves too but we don’t hear anything about that and that is because we realize that men are not homogenous group and in the same manner, women is not a homogeneous group.”

Ngwukwase charged women politicians to live above board; making sure that they put the necessary strategies and action plan in place in order that they can have an edge over their opponents.

 She urged them to do away with the idea of, “because l am a woman l expect that women are going to vote for me.” It does not work that way. The candidate would need to reach out to her fellow women and convince them for their votes.

 “The truth is that women have different interests; they belong to different political parties, and also have candidates just like the men. Such unpleasant comments such as , she didn’t vote for you and she is a woman are damaging because such comments only pave way for women to further work against themselves.

 Such comments, hardly is it noticeable with the men. Women have these attitudes they have to deal with when they go into contest for elections.She cautioned                                                                                         

 “The women should be able to market themselves and not going there to contest election and expect that every woman would vote for them. When we approach it from, ‘woman, vote for woman’, then we would miss the mark.”  She said.

While speaking on the 35 percent reservation for women in Nigeria, the Executive Director observed that since the law is yet to be institutionalized, political parties have not bordered to make it part of their constitutions and laws. Adding that, not until such is done, nothing much can be achieved in that regard.

“If there is a 35 percent reserved in the laws of the country; that would give the women a step up so that they could get in and expand those spaces. There is no binding law in Nigeria that says women must have 35 percent reserved for them to get into elective offices. It does not exist. Except those two things happen,that in itself is a problem as the political terrain is so tough in the country.” Ngukwase emphasized.

The objectives of the reflection seminar aside that of linking female candidates for the general elections with the media to raise the profile of candidates; the meeting is to identify media champions who will promote and highlight the benefits of having more women actively engaged in politics in Kaduna state. She informed.

END.