In 1957, when Margaret Ekpo eyed a seat in the regional House of Assembly, the leadership of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) reportedly told her "the elections were too crucial to take the additional risk of presenting a woman candidate." The rejection stung.

Ekpo was already a force within the party, a skilled organiser who travelled the country rallying women to political consciousness and urging them to secure their place in the nation's future. In 1954, the party nominated her as a special member of the Eastern House of Chiefs, an advisory body made up of notable figures.

Winning her first election into the Aba Urban District Council in 1958 must have seemed like a step towards greater political influence. But when she expressed interest in a federal parliament seat in 1959, the party once again withheld its support.

Her breakthrough finally came in 1961, when she was elected to the Eastern House of Assembly, becoming one of the first women in Nigeria to win a parliamentary seat. It was a well-earned victory, but her path to office underscored the many barriers women had to overcome in politics.

The political exclusion extended beyond candidacy. While men gained the right to vote in 1922, women had to wait decades: until the 1950s in the Eastern and Western Regions and the late 1970s in the North. This delayed access meant men had a head start in political engagement, deepening the structural disadvantage for women.

The Glass Ceiling

Nearly fifty years after all Nigerian women gained the right to vote, political representation remains dismal. While women have always been a significant voting bloc—47% as of the 2023 general elections—they have been systematically excluded from leadership, with major political parties historically failing to platform them as candidates.

From Ekpo's early struggles in the 1950s to today, women in Nigerian politics have faced entrenched sexist structures, financial barriers, political violence, and cultural biases that limit their participation. Even well-intended policies, such as reduced nomination fees for female candidates, have proven ineffective in levelling the playing field, as women still lack the financial and institutional backing to run for office.

The sad truth is that these issues are as commonplace now, as they were decades ago and continue to transcend generational shifts.

A Promised Unfulfilled

The logic follows that the more women enter leadership, the stronger the pipeline becomes. Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, elected to the Senate in 1992, became Lagos’s deputy governor in 1999. That same year, three women won Senate seats—a moment that should have laid the groundwork for building a lasting political network for women. For all the promise of hope, an undeniably patriarchal structure is blocking progress. In a 1999 interview with P.M. News, Oluremi Adedoyin, then a grassroots politician, explained why.

This structure manifests in different ways. First, sustainable access to funding is limited. The average woman earns 58.4 kobo for every naira earned by the average man, representing 42% less earnings. The perceived viability of men in elections means that parties and politicians support men, and women candidates are often marginalised when seeking access to these funds. Even when there are waivers, the expectation is that parties only respect those who can prove their ability to fund their campaigns.

When she contested for the presidential ticket of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1992, Sarah Jibril believed her bid would have had a different outcome if she had ₦40 million, worth over ₦3 billion today. Financial strength often leads to control of party structures and the ability to influence how these structures produce candidates and elected officials.

Men dominate party hierarchies, and women are often boxed into National Women Leader roles—no woman has occupied a major party's top executive seat. This affects how things as mundane as meeting times and locations are often done to suit men, often at night and when "responsible" women are expected to be at home taking care of their families.

The fraternal structure of Nigerian politics means that many women who gain entry do so through close ties to influential male politicians. The most prominent examples are often wives, daughters, relatives, or trusted allies. This reinforces the perception that men retain control over political spaces, conceding positions only to women they believe they can influence or manage. As a result, women without such connections are largely excluded, and politics appears less like a democratic process and more like a patronage system.

Swimming Against The Tide

Cultural perceptions of women in power often mar their candidacies as they are still largely viewed through the lens of subservience to men. This has informed instances of women reporting that they cooked for and served men during political gatherings. This culture has also influenced the support—or lack thereof—they received from fellow women, who hold similar beliefs that a woman's place is in the home. Lola Akande narrated how, during her 1998 campaign for Ikeja Local Government Chairmanship, she received a fair amount of support and attacks from women.

Cultural views are also reinforced by how the media engages female candidates. While men are grilled on more policy-oriented questions, women are forced to present plans for balancing domestic duties with political roles. They also often have to explain or justify their careers outside their domestic duties.

In a study of the media visibility of frontline politicians during the 2019 electoral cycle, female candidates received notably less general coverage than their male counterparts. They were mentioned more in fashion, family, and women's rights stories, indicating a narrow focus on gender-specific topics. In contrast, male candidates enjoyed richer coverage across various story types and were prominently featured in diverse issues such as politics, economy, and governance, showcasing a broader spectrum of topics associated with their campaigns.

Married women face even greater challenges in a country where representation and federal character are central to electoral politics. They are often caught between retaining their original place of origin and embracing that of their spouses.

Bianca Ojukwu faced this challenge when she sought the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) ticket to represent Anambra South Senatorial District ahead of the 2019 elections. Critics argued that her connection to the district was solely through her marriage to the late Odumegwu Ojukwu and insisted she should pursue her political ambitions in her state of origin. They asked for a "son of the soil." With no legal barrier to her candidacy, she contested the party's primary election but ultimately lost the ticket.

The dynamic shifted in the case of Betty Akeredolu, who sought a senatorial seat in her native Imo State ahead of the 2023 elections. Opposition arose because she was already the first lady of Ondo State by her marriage to the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu. Yet, she was unlikely to be accepted as a candidate in Ondo either.

The Cost of Keeping Women Out

Men vying for office are likelier to stay in politics than women, contesting multiple times or biding their time while heavily involved in political activities. On the other hand, women drop out after losing and are usually unable to sustain such commitment. They suffer high attrition rates throughout the electoral cycle and face significant and distinct challenges in each phase.

The few women who remain in politics after suffering defeat at the polls tend to find eventual victory after navigating the political terrain in continuous election cycles, familiarising themselves with the networks and decision-makers, and building clout in their constituencies to give them leverage. Over half of the women senators elected in 2019 were on their second or third campaigns. Sadly, these are often outliers.

The challenges women like Ekpo encountered in colonial and early post-colonial Nigeria persist today. While some progress has happened, the country's political systems remain backwardly discriminatory against women, and the journey ahead is still rough. The solution to limited financing is not grants and half-baked concessions from political parties but improved economic empowerment for women through tailored policies and substantial investments in women's political ambitions.

The true cost of failure here is that while politics seems to be losing quality women in leadership positions, other sectors are embracing the wisdom of more equitable leadership. Women hold managing director positions in four of the country's top ten banks by asset size, are among senior partners at top law firms, and are often cited among co-founders at top fintech companies such as Piggyvest and Bamboo.

Accomplished women such as Amina J. Mohammed and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala have been named to top roles at the United Nations and World Trade Organisation, after serving in appointive federal cabinet roles. While their expertise earned them global recognition, the path to electoral success in Nigeria is far more restrictive, favouring men with political networks and party backing over competence alone.

If women continue to be marginalised in politics, the true losers will be citizens deprived of the quality that women have often shown when given these opportunities.