Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has lamented that the gap between women’s participation as voters and their participation as political leaders is substantial.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during a strategic engagement with party leaders, female candidates, civil society organisations, development partners and the media ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Amupitan, who was represented by the National Commissioner, Prof. Rhoda Gumus, challenged political parties to move from lip service to concrete action on women’s political participation.
The INEC chairman, in a statement issued Wednesday by INEC Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Mrs. Victoria Eta-Messi, stressed that a democracy that mobilises women as voters but provides limited pathways for them to become political leaders is yet to fully realise its representative potential.
He said: “The question before the commission was ‘not simply about the participation of women in one electoral cycle’, but one that goes to ‘the character, inclusiveness and long-term sustainability of Nigeria’s democracy’.”
Amupitan added that women remained a formidable presence in Nigeria’s electorate, pointing out that 44,414,846 of the 93,469,008 registered voters in the 2023 general election, or 47.52 per cent, were women, saying: “Almost one in every two registered voters in the last general election.”
He said this trend had persisted into the ongoing voter registration for the 2027 elections.
Amupitan pointed out that of the 3,867,997 Nigerians who completed registration in the exercise’s third phase as of July 26, 2026, women accounted for 2,037,589, or 52.68 per cent, compared to 1,830,408 men.
He stated: “Women therefore accounted for the majority of new registrants in the final phase of the exercise. Women are not marginal to Nigeria’s electoral population. They are a substantial part of the electorate.”
Amupitan decried that this weight at the polling unit was not reflected in candidacy or elective office.
Citing 2023 election data, he lamented that only 1,556 of 15,331 candidates across major elective positions, representing 10.15 per cent, were women, while just three women were elected to the Senate and 16 to the House of Representatives, representing 2.8 per cent and 4.4 per cent of seats respectively.
According to him, “A substantial gap appears to exist between women’s participation as voters and their participation as political leaders.”
The chairman, therefore, called on political parties to consider what practical support could be extended to female candidates in areas such as access to party structures and leadership, campaign platforms, media visibility, fundraising networks, mentoring, political communication, logistics, security and grassroots mobilization.
He said political parties should also examine whether women were being given genuine opportunities to rise through party structures.
“The participation of women is not a favour to women. It is a democratic imperative,” he noted.
Amupitan urged parties to move from commitment to action, and from aspiration to implementation.