Number Of Nigerian Women Lawmakers Shrinks By Nearly Half

By Anthony Osae-Brown in Bloomberg. Here is an excerpt:

With 92% of results announced from elections held Feb. 25, only 13 women have won seats in Nigeria’s 469-seat parliament, according to a list published by the country’s electoral commission. That’s down from 21 women in the current legislature, which already had the lowest female representation in Africa. The number is unlikely to change much when all the results are unveiled because men dominate the contest for the outstanding 39 seats. 

While women form 51% of the voting bloc in Africa’s biggest democracy, Nigeria has never had a female president or vice president. Women have also never won a governorship election in any of the country’s 36 states since democracy returned in 1999. 

The only woman among the 18 candidates that vied for president in this year’s election tallied 25,000 votes, out of 25 million ballots cast. 

Read the full article here.