EDO WOMEN AND 2019 POLL

Months after, the sting from the dismal results of the 2019 Federal and State Houses of Assembly elections on female candidates from Edo State is still smarting. This may be especially so for stakeholders who are of the opinion that despite all efforts being made, no state in Nigeria has come close to achieving the objectives of the 2009 National Gender Policy which has provisions to ‘Increase women elected and appointed positions to 35% .

For female candidates in Edo State, the zero per cent score sheet pending the outcome of the suit that has been filed by the PDP Ovia Constituency female candidate, Omosede Igbenedion, has made the gender gap much wider.

On the surface, everything appears balanced as the two major political parties in Edo State and a host of others have ‘women leaders’ as an integral part of the party structure.

For the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which is the main opposition party, Lindsay Sorae holds this position. In the ruling party, Betty Okoebor has held this position for a little

over a year but she is not by any means new to the political terrain. She is extending this influence to other women and encouraging them to fill the gender gap by seeking elective positions.

Inumundu Ereku of the APC, who contested for Owan West Constituency State House of Assembly seat in 2019 poll, while giving reason for the reluctance of females to seek political positions, disclosed that she suffered humiliation both physically and spiritually.

How dirty is Nigeria’s terrain? A 2019 research tracking election violence in Nigeria by Arch Harwood, the creator of the Nigerian Security Tracker puts a number to incidences that led to the term ‘dirty political terrain’. In the 2015 cycle, the NST documented 106 election-related deaths. These deaths were largely concentrated in the South-West and in the Delta.

Tina Clark, a legal practitioner and the founder of Tina Love Foundation, an NGO, identified a socio-cultural dimension as one of causes of the challenges that women candidates face at the poll. “Women have never been restricted in Nigeria. Omordia Efe-Alexandra, Benin, Edo State