Dr. Adaora Sydney-Jack, a gender equality advocate, has made a strong case for an increase in women inclusion in Nigeria’s male-dominated electoral process which she described as ‘performative inclusion’.
Sidney-Jack advocates more women inclusion in politics
The Creative Director of Gender Agenda, who doubles as the founder of the WEWE Network Afrique spoke during the panel session of the 10th Annual Conference of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP).
The two-day annual conference was held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, on 7 and 8 October, 2026 with the theme: “2027 Elections: Trust, Transparency and Shared Responsibilities.”
Dr Sydney-Jack spoke generally on election preparations in the country, noting that elections do not hold in one day, “rather, elections begin with institutional processes, which also begin with the relevant institutions being inclusive and intentional from the onset.”
The gender equality advocate, expressed worries over the dwindling level of participation of women in the country’s electoral processes, which, she observed, remained a far-cry from what was recorded in the 2019 and 2023 election cycles, respectively.
“On June 8, 2026 after the primaries of the various political parties in the country, we saw that only three female senatorial candidates emerged from across at the 22 political parties in the country. This represents a drastic decline from what we saw in 2019.
“In 2023, there was no female presidential candidate on the ballot papers, and in 2026, what we are seeing is the emergence of only two women among the 22 political parties.
“We also have four female vice presidential candidates across four political parties comprising the NNPP, the Labour Party, YPP and YP.
“It does not in any way mean or suggest that these women, who have emerged on the ballot papers will emerge at the final elections.
“We want to grow from this current performative inclusion to real-time inclusion for women”, Dr Sidney-Jack declared.
She decried what she said was the non-transparent consensus option for party primaries, noting that it has resulted in the exclusion of women at the very first stage of the process.
She said this even as some of the political parties’ candidates were merely selected without much involvement of women in the name of consensus.
“At the moment, the issue of opaque consensus method seems intentional to exclude women other. How can you say that out of 22 political parties, only 20 per cent of women are seen as aspirants and even among the leading parties.
“The parties included the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which has only about 10.8 per cent of women as candidates, [and] which is a huge tragedy.
“Secondly, this means that when we go into the real elections, with the 50 per cent increase in the number of voters, of which women are more, we will not see this representation of women on the ballot papers, which means that women will be voting mostly for the men.
“What that also means is that in 2027, we will have less number of women in the Parliament.
“Right now we have just about four per cent of women and with the turn out that we saw at the primaries and on the ballot, we are looking at having just about 2.7 per cent of won at the Senate in 2027.
“We had observed this earlier and that is why we started having conversations around reserving seats for women, which was a Bill for intentionally increasing women participation in the country’s electoral processes,” she added.
Speaking on the credibility of the electoral processes and the electoral umpire — the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) — she noted that, while it was right to acquire modern tools to improve the system, technological credibility cannot replace the institutional credibility of INEC.
She insisted that INEC must by itself enhance the believability and accountability of its processes by ensuring credible, free and fair elections to earn the trust of the electorates and also by ensuring that violations are adequately punished.
She also disagreed with a submission that the outcome of the Osun State governorship election was an indication of what will be replicated in the 2027 elections, arguing that Osun was just one out of 36 states and the FCT.
“Even with the seeming openness in the Osun election, the citizens are still not convinced that the INEC has that assuring trust and accountability.
“You heard talks like: ‘They gave us Osun State so that they will take the 2027 elections, which is a barometer to measure the level of trust the citizens have on INEC,” she argued.
