Women and Political Party System in Nigeria: An Appraisal of All Progressive Congress and People’s Democratic Party
Keywords:
Women, political party, party system, democracy and ElectionAbstract
Democracy provides a level playing field for competitiveness for all people, regardless of gender. Any system that claims to be democratic must, in essence, accept a higher standard of open competition, accountability, political rights, and public participation that embraces all societal groups. Democracy encompasses political party’s participation, capable of organizing, educating, and bringing together a variety of social interests. After a protracted period of military dictatorship, Nigeria returned to a democratically elected system of government in 1999, with the first registration of three political parties. Since democracy was restored in the country, the number of citizens who are members of political parties of their choice have increased dramatically. As a result, every member of society has an equal opportunity to participate in the political process through elections. This study investigates women and political party system in Nigeria with focus on two political parties: All Progressive Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in order to assess the role, impact, and factors that are working against women in party partitioning. Feminist theory is one of the components of the study's foundation. The study uses secondary source of data collection and archival method research was employed whereby several scholarly articles, reports, policy statements, publications, records documents were consulted to gather relevant information needed in order to accomplish the stated objectives. This is based on the fact that secondary methods help us to understand women interaction with Nigeria's political party, structures and with the electorates. Therefore, it is important to promote the adoption of internal structures and procedures that are gender-responsive by political parties.
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