Gender representation of women in Nigerian leadership and decision-making process: a discourse analysis

The Beijing Platform for Affirmative Action (1995) and the National Gender Policy (2007) agitate for redress in the gender imbalances in the political system of states development and recommend substantive equality of women in decision making process in the country. Despite this recommendation and the enormous campaign on women for change initiatives aimed at improving the participation of women in politics,the weak image representation of women in Nigerian society and the cultural attitudes in the country which hinder women participation in public life and politics have not given women enough level playing ground to actualise their dreams of active involvement in politics. With this, the dearth of women in politics in Nigeria has been a major cause of concern over the years. Though some improvements have been recorded so far in the political representation of women in Nigeria, the political landscape in the country demonstrates that women are still grossly under-represented in governance and decision making. While men take up large number of administrative and elective positions women are constantly left with fewer opportunities. This paper is an attempt at investigating the gender representation of women who constitute the majority of the voters’ population during elections with regards to active political participation and representation in the Nigerian media.