In July, I read an article by ThisDay columnist and Ovation Publisher, Dele Momodu, on his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. In that piece entitled, “An Afternoon with President Buhari”, Momodu mentioned that he told the President the importance of bringing “bright women” on board his government. My first thought on reading that was, “Wow, Bob Dee, thanks for advocating for women (with some really queer logic too!), but why should the President need to be told about having to ‘find’ bright women as if they are extinct species? And in 2015 too!”
Since Buhari’s ministerial list was made public on Tuesday, I have had to return to that article to read for traces of Buhari’s attitude to women from his interaction with Momodu. Apart from Buhari’s hearty laugh at the reasons Momodu highlighted, there does not seem to be more. But then, laughter in itself, like the theorist, Achille Mbembe, posits, can be a political position too. From Momodu’s piece, his negotiation for women with the President ended up more as a mood lightener rather than a serious consideration, or acknowledgment of a dedication to women’s cause. If Buhari conceded women’s representations on the grounds Momodu listed, and signed it off with a roar of laughter, that suggests his Presidency will perhaps take women too lightly, as maybe a joke. It should not come as a total surprise.
Prior to Buhari’s election, his wife, Aisha, was almost always invisible. In an article I wrote then, Where is Mrs. Buhari?, I pointed out the contradiction of Buhari’s manifesto on women issues and his public conduct towards his own wife. The very next day, his wife surfaced and they walked through the electioneering together. Now the elections are over and it seems the status of women under Buhari is going to be subject to negotiation again.
Like many Nigerians, I find the ministerial list underwhelming largely because of the hype that preceded its emergence. We were told it was delayed because of the effort being poured into searching for the best possible hands to fashion the change that formed the bedrock of their campaign. Six months post-election, the list is an array of no-surprise personalities, just regular faces and party members. If Buhari can take that long to find the people in his backyard, Nigerians had better be thankful he did not attempt to cast his net too wide. What is perhaps more disappointing is the number of women in the line-up — a mere 14 per cent. In the past four months, Buhari has made some 30 appointments and only one was a woman. Her candidature came with controversies and one can conclude that if not for her consanguinity with the President, that appointment might have gone to another male.
Buhari’s defenders like to regale us with the dubious argument that his appointments are based on merit — an assertion the President himself countered when he stated that he was rewarding his associates. Well, one would have to be simultaneously blind and be chauvinistic to claim that it is possible to look through the length and breadth of Nigeria and not find enough women qualified to fill an entire cabinet of positions. There is no time in our history — pre-colonial, colonial, military and present — that women have not played key roles in public administration. The argument about unqualified women is therefore untenable. Sometimes, limited by economic power or disabling structural inequality, women have nevertheless pushed against the many antagonising odds; history and anthropological texts are full of such exploits by Nigerian/African women.
The arguments about female political participation are a recrudescence of previous pushes by women for better representation in “modern” governance. From 1999 till now, women like the late Jadesola Akande, Yetunde Gandonu, Keziah Awosika, have striven to increase women participation in governance based on the understanding that the amount of participation of women in the political sphere is proportionate to the amount of power they wield in the society. With Buhari’s list, one wonders his appreciation of existing ideological arguments about increased women participation.
Before the clan of anti-women begin to proffer the anticipated and meretricious argument about opting for a neutral standard such as “merit’ for appointments in Nigeria, can they take a minute to question why the country much more freely discusses lopsidedness of appointments vis a vis the rubric of the federal character but hold up their noses when the conversation is extended to gender? For much of this Presidency, people have argued about ethnic misbalancing, pointing out that Buhari, by opting for candidates from his region and home state, is displaying a provincialism, a clannishness that is unbecoming of the President of a diverse country like Nigeria. These criticisms got to a head and Buhari’s media aide, Mr. Femi Adesina, had to respond that the President would still balance all appointments as if the whole process were premised on geopolitical pandering. So why is it easier to proclaim that we wilfully search for a President from northern Nigeria; balance it with a vice-president from southern Nigeria; opt for key appointments from strategic zones but resort to neutrality when it comes to gender? Why should a sense of belonging premised on ethnicity be rated higher than one based on gender? It is easy to pretend that men are qualified simply because they work harder and not because social power structures enable (dis)qualification by gender. If Buhari himself had been a woman, would he have come this far — to be made President at the age of 73?
Studies after studies of contemporary Nigerian political sphere show that gender bias is real and socio-political structures are inherently hostile to women, limiting their participation to the fringes. The women who have made it through on their own strength, not as wives or daughters of godfathers and party big men, have done so largely in spite of gender factors. These are realities that should not be ignored and which deserve to be redressed by boosting female representation to, at the very least, demystify the notions of who can occupy which space of power.
As for those who argue that appointing women to political position makes no difference considering that women are just as corrupt as men, (and the case of a former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and her current travails will be a ready example) I say until that day comes when men are disqualified based on the failure of their male predecessors, that unintelligent line of reasoning does not merit a response.
Finally, one more reason I find Buhari’s list listless and disappointing is because it represents a retrogression from his immediate predecessor. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had a policy of giving a third of all appointments to women. Before him, the late Umaru Yar’Adua made a similar promise but women representation in his government remained at a low ebb. Jonathan fulfilled his promise although I pointed out that while such a policy has symbolic and functional value, it does not do nearly enough to disable the legal, cultural and social structures that universalise the male experience, disprivilege women, and consequently deprive them of full citizenship. Now I look back and wonder if, compared to Buhari, Jonathan should not be the one wearing the “progressive” tag.
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