UNDER-REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

Women participation in governance in Nigeria and Edo State in particular, remains a burning issue in nearly every political discourse in Nigeria. For years, it has been observed that women have played comparatively less role as political office holders to their male counterparts.1 In Edo State, Nigeria, the political arena is not different from other parts of the world where political participation is imbalance in favour of men.2 Women‘s participation in the political process has therefore become the focus of many local and international debates in the past two decades.3 Different fora such as the 1995 Beijing Declaration, the 1995 Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women held in Kenya and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, had recognized the plight of women‘s participation in politics especially in the developing countries.4 Against this backdrop, this study seeks to assess the political under- participation of women in politics to Edo state and investigate the reasons for this
umbalances.