CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Participation and representation of women in political leadership seems to be a global problem cutting across national and international levels. The poor participation of women in politics has influenced their poor representation in political leadership. This attitudinal behaviour of women has attracted international conferences, seminars and other processes by the United Nations and other international agencies to address these issues of poor participation and representation of women in political leadership. Beijing platform for Action (1995) emphasized that women’s equal participation and representation in political life plays a vital role in the general process of development of women and achievement of the goals of equality and peace of nations. It also recommended that women should have equal access to and full participation and representation in power structures, decision making and leadership. The United Nation Development Report on Executive Opinion Survey study (2004), conducted on 58 countries of the world on women political empowerment, findings revealed that: Women are poorly represented in the lower levels of government; they are rarer still in the upper echelons of decision-making and that women are absent from structures of governance in national, regional and local, meaning that they do not contribute meaningfully on how resources are allocated.
Politics, according to Ogunna (2003), is the process through which people are kept in orderly and peaceful behaviour and through cooperative endeavour; skilful management of tensions and resolution of conflicts, disagreements, social leadership, the general interest and welfare of the people are attained, sustained and the survival of the state is maintained. To Northouse (2007), leadership is the process whereby an individual influences a group of individual to achieve a common goal; Unanka (2002) sees political leadership as involving politicians who implements or interprets the laws while promoting the active and intelligent cooperation of the ruled. In another view, Pitkin (1967) defines political representation as the activity of making citizens’ voices, opinions and perspectives “present” in the public policy making process. Pitkin also notes that political representation occurs when political actors speak, advocate, symbolize and act on the behalf of others in the political arena. In Nigeria, women seem to participate in politics passively and this has affected their representation in leadership positions. Agbara (2007) survey study on women participation and representation in politics in Nigeria revealed that from 1979-1983 there was only one female out of 57 members of the senate, three females out of 445 in the Federal House of Representatives and only two female ministers.
Between 1991-1993, only 27 (2.3%) of 172 legislators in the House of Assembly were women, while only nine women contested for the position of state governors out of 300 aspirants with none of the women emerging as winner. Still on the above mentioned years, out of 8,800 counsellors only 143 were women; 774 local government chairmen, only nine were women. In the State House of Assembly, out of 983 members, only 12 women represented. Based on these poor representations, women empowerment programmes were formed to empower women socially, economically and politically. Among these programmes are: Better Life programme for rural women, Mass Mobilization for Self-reliance, Economic Recovery and Social Justice (MAMSER), National Orientation Agency (NOA), to list but few. In addition, some women Professional Associations were put in motion all over the country to empower women. These include: Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) which