“If women have given us more trophies than men,” asked Kayode Okikiolu, a TV anchor with Channels TV, “can they maybe give us better governance?” It is a fair and timely question, by the recent victory of the Super Falcons, who won the African Women Cup of Nations (WAFCON) for a record tenth time, dubbed “Mission X”, and one that deserves more than a passing thought. Also, D’Tigress, Nigeria’s national female basketball team, clinched a fifth consecutive International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Women’s AfroBasket Championship by defeating Mali 78-64 on Sunday, 3 August, to win their seventh AfroBasket title, which also secured them a spot at next year’s FIBA Women’s World Cup. Nigerian women have consistently demonstrated excellence in various sectors, from sports to business and the creative industries. Yet, when it comes to politics and governance, their presence remains painfully low, not due to a lack of competence but systemic barriers that continue to sideline them.
According to Women in Management, Business & Public Service (WIMBIZ), women occupy just 6.7% of elective and appointive political positions in Nigeria. It is far below the 35% national gender policy benchmark and even further from the global average. In the National Assembly today, only 21 out of 469 lawmakers are women—8 Senators and 13 members of the House of Representatives. That is roughly 4.5%.
These numbers show that while women make up half the population, they can hardly contribute meaningfully to decisions that shape the country. The problem is not only about seats in government but also about visibility and representation in the media, which plays a major role in setting the agenda for national discourse.
Encouragingly, efforts to address this imbalance are gathering momentum. The Reserved Seats for Women Bill, currently before the National Assembly, proposes the creation of one new legislative seat per state and the FCT in both the Senate and House of Representatives, exclusively to be contested by women. At the state level, it suggests three additional reserved seats per state in the State Houses of Assembly. If passed into law, these proposed 182 new seats will not take away from existing ones but will work to level the playing field by giving women the space and opportunity to serve.
The WSCIJ’s 2024 report titled “Who Leads the Newsrooms and News?” reveals that women are underrepresented at all levels of Nigerian news media. Just 25.7% of newsroom leadership positions are held by women across 111 surveyed media organisations in Nigeria. In print and online media, it was only 4.6% and 5.5%, respectively. The consequence is that when women are not in leadership or editorial decision-making roles, their stories, perspectives and expertise are often left out of the news.
This same report found that women appear in just 7.1% of news stories and make up only 12.1% of the expert voices quoted or featured. It is a vicious cycle: fewer women in the media means fewer women’s issues are reported, and fewer women featured means the public remains less informed about the value they bring to leadership and governance.
So when Kayode asks if women can give us better governance, the answer is not speculative; it is rooted in a clear imbalance that needs correcting. Women have the potential, but the structures around them—media, politics, and public policy—have not given them the room to lead.
At the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, we believe better governance is not about gender for its own sake. It is about the quality of ideas, representation, and fairness. Women have already proven what they can do. What remains is for the rest of us to clear the path and give them the space to do it.
