Now that the court has spoken…

By Lillian Okenwa

“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.” Hon. Justice Okorowo

“For any society to thrive, the rules, responsibilities, policies, and guidelines that regulate the polity must be fair and enforced impartially, particularly with gender balance at the root of all actions,” wrote Chief (Mrs) Victoria Awomolo, SAN, a paper titled —Gender Balance and Good Governance in Nigeria: Beyond Rhetoric.

That must have been the mindset of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which only days ago ordered Nigeria’s federal government to enforce the National Gender Policy by allotting 35 percent of appointments in the public sector to women.

Hon. Justice Donatus 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.

Prior to this decision, Chief (Mrs) Awomolo, SAN, in her paper written in honour of Chief Folake Solanke, SAN, on the occasion of her 90th birthday, remarked that impartially particularly with regards to gender balance: “[Form] the bedrock for good governance, which cannot be attained without equality, inclusiveness, freedom with responsibility, transparency, objectivity, accountability, and responsiveness.” “These elements”, she said “are front-burner issues to tackle, if there be hope for social, economic, and political development.”

Likewise, a number of the issues raised by the Learned Senior Advocate in her paper were roundly discussed at the just concluded 2nd Annual Confab of the Nigerian Bar Association Women Forum (NBAWF). One of the panellists in the first session —Hidden Biases in Courtroom Dynamics: Gender and the Judiciary— Rashidat Mohammed gave an insight into the impact of gender-based bias and discrimination on women in northern Nigeria. Stressing that she knows first-hand what gender bias and other barriers were about, Rashidat observed that from the cultural preference for boys over girls to the disapproval of Western education for females in favour of child marriages, she resisted the pressure to conform and rose to become the Senior Partner of her law firm.

Summing up that first session, the moderator, Ireti Bakare-Yusuf, broadcaster, activist, and Founder of the Purple Women’s Foundation restated the position of NBAWF President, Professor Oluyemisi Adefunke Bamgbose, SAN, to the effect that the weapons to be deployed against covert or overt bias should be sophisticated and multidimensional. Bakare-Yusuf also agreed with Hon. Justice Roli Harriman of the High Court of Delta State, and Mrs. Dorothy Udeme Ufot, SAN, Founding and Managing Partner at the law firm of Dorothy Ufot & Co that a woman’s commitment to excellence, focus, and determination, is the best antidote to gender bias.

It is incontrovertible that a number of Nigerian women have applied these antidotes yet, in nearly every sphere of influence, whether in politics or in the legal profession, men dominate. At a different forum, former Chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chidi Anselm Odinkalu made the following observation. “The first Nigerian woman lawyer, Stella Thomas enrolled in 1935, no? She was a contemporary of Adetokubo Ademola. He went on to become Chief Justice of Nigeria. She ended up as a Magistrate. That was 47 years after Sapara Williams. Women still have challenges getting Silk even when men of lesser ability take it without breaking a sweat. The idea, therefore, that there is no discrimination is just not historically founded. There is. Discrimination is inherent historically in the constitution, methods, and customs of the Bar… That is why this rankles because I would have thought that being aware of that, we as leaders of a different kind of persuasion would take explicit steps in every way and in every activity to try to do an overdue re-set. Our spectacles have to be different.”

Back to the NBAWF event, the second session — Rising to the Occasion: Leadership from the Eyes of a Contemporary Woman, anchored by Shola Sholeye, Judicial Correspondent at Channels Television, and her panel comprising Wola Joseph, Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary at Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Nta Ekpiken, Principal Partner at NECS; Chinwe Odigboegwu, Legal Director at Guinness Nigeria Plc., and a virtual participant, Sheryl Galler, Chairperson of the New York State Bar Association’s Women in Law Section concluded that continuous self-improvement is the key defying negative gender stereotypes.

However, the last panel made up of Hon. Onofiok Luke, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Kunle Lawal, Executive Director, Electoral College Nigeria, Mahmud Yusuf, Programme Manager, Network of Universities Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI Nigeria), Dr. Foluke Dada, Founding Partner, District Law Firm, Lagos,  and a virtual participant, Prof. Uche Ewelukwa Offodile, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, discussed the theme —Advancing Society: The National Assembly as a Friend or Foe?   Mrs. Folashade Olusanya, Partner at the law firm of Jackson, Etti & Edu was the moderator.

Top on their discussion list with regards to the National Assembly’s rejection of the affirmative action bill included — What went wrong? What was behind the legislators’ action? And how can we walk back that decision, undo the damage, and reclaim our high moral ground as a people? Numerous questions are still being asked on the subject and as if in direct response to these posers, Chief Mrs. Awomolo, in the paper earlier mentioned expressed dismay that: “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.”

“I have tried…to reiterate the challenges being faced by women in getting their rightful positions in the various areas of governance in Nigeria and the world over. 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).

“[When] another opportunity comes to represent the Bill on specific seats to be allocated to women in the National and State Assemblies, I suggest that we rework the Bill to pointedly demand one-third of the existing seats. That way one of the three Senatorial seats in all the States of the Federation will be reserved for women, and rotated, while women can still contest the other two. Ditto for constituencies for House of Representatives election and States Houses of Assembly.

“The Federal Capital Territory should be accorded its full constitutional identity as a State with a third of its seats reserved for women. This I believe will not involve any additional cost or budget, which is one of the reasons why I learnt the last Bill was shut down and voted against.

“The seasonal eulogies and rhetoric about women’s participation in the electoral process are not enough. We must back it up with deliberate actions and collaboration among stakeholders. On the whole, the struggle for the total emancipation for women in Nigeria is about to be won in the nearest future but let us (women) be united in our demands and support our leaders, after all as the saying goes, ‘In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about   life; it goes on.’

“[And] as Robin Roberts said, ‘Life is not so much what you accomplish as what you overcome.’ Mama Solanke, SAN accomplished much and overcome much more…”

Though the Learned Silk went on to proffer suggestions on how the problem of representation could be resolved the Federal High Court appears to have resolved a greater part of this irksome matter. All eyes are now on the Federal Government. Will they do the needful? In the meantime, here are Awomolo’s propositions:

• Training in the fundamentals of politics. Women need to understand grass-root politics and start from there. When people are unknown at the grassroots, they are not successful.

• Networking and Mentoring. Women need to see that politics is not all dirty. They need to see governance as what affects every member of society.

• Continued Advocacy for Constitutional changes with practical and proactive steps – A good quota system that reserves a fraction of electoral positions for women will help. Thanks to the efforts of the recent past. Political parties have been known to tell women to step down from the electoral process. This must stop.

• Financial Support – Some women can’t afford to buy party forms. Women need financial support that will not impede their rights to participate or vie for positions. Men contribute to buying forms for their friends. Women need to start doing this if they must succeed i.e. Encourage women who are efficient and have the capacity to lead.

• The media must change their attitude towards political coverage of women. They sometimes project women in ways that are not relevant to leadership, politics, or election.

Following The Federal High Court’s decision nonetheless, Nigerian women are keenly waiting for the Federal Government not to uphold the judgment in principle but to begin implementation.

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.”

His Lordship also held that the Attorney-General of the Federation (Mr. Abubakar Malami) who was the sole defendant in the case, “failed to disprove the material allegations contained in the affidavit, and led no credible evidence to debunk material evidence of the plaintiff… The plaintiff has led cogent, verifiable evidence backed by incontrovertible depositions in their affidavit evidence contrary to the objections raised by the defendant…

“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… This court is not expected to achieve less for Nigerian women, since the constitutional obligation of this court is to apply the law.”