By Lillian Okenwa
While Nigeria contends with ethnicity, religion, patriarchy, and many more, a woman from India’s tribal minority, Droupadi Murmu, has been elected as the country’s president with the backing of the ruling party. She is the first person from the marginalised community to occupy the top post.
Although her position is largely ceremonial, 64 years old Murmu, from the Santhal tribe, secured the position with the support of more than half the electorate of MPs and state legislators, partial results released by the election commission showed. This is an indication that countries are moving ahead and seeking better options to advance governance.
In recent times many countries have elected women leaders both young and old while Nigeria is still steeped in primordial politics, with some politicians being asked to go and govern people of their own tribes. And as the 2023 election beckons not one of the major political parties has a woman as running mate.
Saara Kuugongelwa, now the prime minister of Namibia, was exiled from her home country at just 13 years old. Her fight against corruption, coupled with her insistence on sound fiscal policies, has led to the country’s first budget surplus in its history. Nepal’s president, Bidhya Devi Bhandari, has emphasized the need for gender equality, especially in light of the devastating earthquake that decimated the country in 2015. New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is widely credited with enacting policies that minimized the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in her country. Her no-nonsense approach included quickly shutting down the country and isolating virus cases, which enabled New Zealand to become the first country to reopen safely.
Not long ago, Federal High Court’s Hon. Justice Donatus Okorowo held that: “Formulating Policies based on sex, stereotyping and feudal and patriarchal traditions will no longer be tolerated due to the supremacy of constitutional values… This court is not expected to achieve less for Nigerian women, since the constitutional obligation of this court is to apply the law.”
Justice Okorowo in the suit filed by the Chambers of Falana and Falana on behalf of the Nigerian women and other critical stakeholders including Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), Women Empowerment and Legal Aid (WELA), Women in Politics Forum (WIPF), Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD- WEST AFRICA), Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), Vision Spring Initiatives (VSI), YIAGA, Africa, International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and many other women groups established that Nigerian women had been subjected to various forms of discrimination concerning appointments into key positions of government.
It is worth restating that while making reference to Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution, as it relates to the suit, the court agreed: “[That] of all the 44 ministries, there are only about six female gender, and that the situation is worse in other MDAs and agencies.” Hon. Justice Okorowo pointed out that the Federal Government by its actions implies that there are no competent and reliable women that should be appointed to “stop the apparent male dominance as witnessed in the appointments” of men into key government positions. “I agree with their (plaintiff) contention”, Justice Okorowo said, “that this cannot be possible out of 70 million women in Nigeria.
“These violations with impunity and reckless abandon were projected by the plaintiff… The defendant merely based their arguments on the grounds that the plaintiff’s demands are not justiciable…[Dismantling] barriers to women’s participation in public spheres have been achieved through progressive interpretation of municipal laws and international obligations and treaties. Formulating Policies based on sex, stereotyping and feudal and patriarchal traditions will no longer be tolerated due to the supremacy of constitutional values…”
As Chief Mrs. Victoria Awomolo, SAN once said: “While some countries have taken the bull by the horn and addressed the issues frontally by the use or introduction of quota system backed by law, Nigeria is still unable to decide to do anything concrete about it. An attempt to amend the Constitution has met a brick wall and as the Yorubas would say, ‘I yan di atugun, obe di atunse’ (we need to restrategize and change our approach).”
India’s Murmu was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the post. Modi tweeted to congratulate Murmu, saying her “exemplary success motivates each and every Indian.”
“She has emerged as a ray of hope for our citizens, especially the poor, marginalised, and the downtrodden.”
Her closest rival, the opposition-backed Yashwant Sinha — an ex-member of the BJP and former finance and external affairs minister, also tweeted his congratulations. “India hopes that as the 15th President of the Republic she functions as the custodian of the Constitution without fear or favour,” Sinha wrote.
Murmu will be the country’s second woman president after Pratibha Patil, who held the position for five years from 2007 and succeeds Ram Nath Kovind, the second president from the Dalit community, the bottom of the Hindu caste system.
Born in Mayurbhanj district in the eastern state of Odisha, the president-elect began her career as a schoolteacher before joining politics. She has held ministerial positions in the state government and has been governor of the neighbouring state of Jharkhand.
“As a tribal woman from remote Mayurbhanj district, I had not thought about becoming the candidate for the top post,” she told reporters soon after her nomination this month.
Additional reports from AFP
