The cost of leaving women out of governance is not just a gender issue. It is a national loss we can no longer afford.
When TOS Foundation Africa launched its campaign for the passage of the Reserved Seats for Women Bill, a question we encountered repeatedly was this: “Why can’t women slug it out like their male counterparts? Why should seats be reserved for them? Electoral victory is not handed over on a platter of gold; you must fight for it!”
As it turns out, the question answers itself.
As political parties across Nigeria announce their primary modes and self-regulation tactics ahead of the 2027 elections, a troubling pattern is emerging; one that confirms what women in politics have long known: the system is rigged before the whistle is even blown. And as always, women are the first casualties.
Nigeria currently ranks 180th out of 185 countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global ranking of women in parliament; sitting below war-torn nations and fragile states that have nonetheless found the political will to include women in governance. Women hold just 4 per cent of seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly, against a global average of 26.9 per cent. In Rwanda, a country that emerged from genocide, women hold 61 per cent of parliamentary seats. The contrast is not just embarrassing. It is a policy failure of the highest order.
At TOS Foundation Africa’s HerCademy Leadership Institute, which I founded specifically for women seeking leadership roles, particularly in politics, associates have raised consistent alarms: they are being pressured to step down in favour of their party’s consensus candidates. This is not isolated to one party. It is happening across PDP, APC, SDP, ADC and beyond.
As former South African President Thabo Mbeki declared at the AU Summit: “There can be no real African Renaissance without the full participation of African women in all aspects of our life: economic, social, cultural and political.” And yet, when it comes to formal political structures in Nigeria, those same women are being told to stand aside before the race has even begun.
The question then is not whether women are being shut out. The question is: What are we going to do about it?
A Bill That Could Have Changed Everything
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together, and you cannot go far while leaving your women behind.” – African Proverb, widely cited by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
In March 2025, TOS Foundation Africa launched an advocacy campaign for the passage of the Reserved Seats for Women Bill, a constitutional amendment that would create additional seats in the National and State Houses of Assembly to be contested exclusively by women. The bill gained remarkable momentum. It earned the endorsement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR); Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima (GCON); First Lady of the Nigeria Senator Oluremi Tinubu; Senate President Godswill Akpabio; Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas; the Nigeria Governors Forum; the Nigeria Governors Spouses Forum; multiple party chairmen; and a broad coalition of political stakeholders.
And yet, today, the bill sits stalled at the National Assembly; one of 44 constitution amendment bills that have gone nowhere.
This is where the disconnect becomes impossible to ignore. Countries that have implemented reserved seats or gender quotas have seen transformative results. Bolivia, Cuba and the UAE all exceed 50 per cent female parliamentary representation, largely because structural mechanisms were put in place to ensure it. Even closer to home, Senegal introduced a gender parity law in 2010 and watched women’s representation in its National Assembly leap from 22 per cent to 43 per cent almost overnight. Rwanda’s extraordinary model was not accidental; it was anchored in Article 9 of the Rwandan Constitution, which mandates a minimum of 30 per cent women in all decision-making organs. These are not miracles. They are policy choices.
If the endorsements of a sitting president, vice president, senate president and speaker of the house cannot move a bill through the legislature, then we must ask ourselves: how serious are we, really?
This Is Not Sentiment. This Is Economics.
“Gender equality is not just the right thing to do. It is the smart thing to do. No country can afford to waste half of its human resources.” – Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former chairperson of the African Union Commission
The case for women in leadership is not an emotional appeal; it is a socioeconomic imperative.
McKinsey Global Institute estimates that advancing women’s equality globally could add $12 trillion to global GDP. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report consistently finds that nations with higher female political representation also post stronger human development indices, lower corruption levels and more stable institutions. A UN Women study found that women legislators are significantly more likely than their male counterparts to sponsor bills related to healthcare, education, child welfare and anti-corruption, areas that directly determine the quality of life of ordinary Nigerians.
For Nigeria specifically, closing the gender gap in political participation, from the current 4 per cent representation at the National Assembly to even 10, 15 or 20 per cent, could inject an estimated $229 billion into our economy. That is not a talking point. That is a policy argument.
And the barriers are real and documented.
According to the National Democratic Institute (NDI), women candidates in Nigeria face voter bias, party gatekeeping, financing gaps and outright intimidation at levels their male counterparts simply do not encounter. In the 2023 general elections, only 179 women were elected across all legislative levels in Nigeria, out of over 1,000 positions contested. The math is not just discouraging. It is designed to discourage.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who shattered the highest glass ceiling on the continent when she became Liberia’s (and Africa’s) first female president, put it plainly: “The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” Nigerian women in politics are dreaming the right dreams. The system keeps cutting the ladder from beneath them.
So What Now?
“Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. And so is giving women their rightful place at the table of power.” – Nelson Mandela
With the Reserved Seats Bill stalled, and with party primaries already working against women before campaigns even begin, the burden being placed on women to “fight their way in” is not just unfair, it is structurally dishonest. You cannot tell someone to compete on a level playing field while quietly tilting the ground beneath their feet.
It is worth remembering that no country has achieved gender parity in politics without deliberate structural intervention, not one.
The Scandinavian nations so often cited as models of gender equality did not get there by simply encouraging women to “fight harder.” They legislated, they enforced and they held their institutions accountable. Africa has its own proof points and Nigeria need not look further than Kigali for evidence that political will, not culture, is the deciding factor.
As the late Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Kenyan environmentalist and political activist reminded us: “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. That time is now.” For Nigeria’s political establishment, that time is also now.
To women with the appetite to lead: do not step down. Document everything. Build coalitions. Make noise. The system will not reform itself but it can be pressured, and it has been before.
