A political science lecturer of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Dr Damilola Agbalajobi ,has said participation of Nigerian women in politics has drastically reduced because of the corrupt practices exhibited by their male counterparts.
The don made this known during a panel session at ‘Corruption in Nigeria’s 2023 Elections: a post-mortem’, a virtual programme hosted by The Conversation Africa in collaboration with Daily Trust, on Wednesday.
Agbalajobi said women are not given fair political platform to operate by male politicians, and it has caused a sharp decline in the number of women vying for political posts since 2015.
“Corruption in politics has affected women a lot. If you think of the financial obstacles that confront women, they won’t have the courage to contest. This starts from buying nomination forms at the primaries,” Agbalajobi said.
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She also said that other forms of corruption that keep scaring women away from contesting against men include sexual harassment and discrimination.
“A lot of corruption in politics disfavours women and subjects them to unfair conditions,” she added.
In his own remarks, the founder of Connected Development (CODE), Hamzat Lawal, said Nigeria must explore preventive measures in tackling corruption during elections.
“We must look inward at how to explore intelligence-gathering as civil societies to combat corrupt practices in the election,” Lawal said.
Another panellist at the programme, Prof Remi Aiyede from the University of Ibadan, expressed dissatisfaction with the just concluded elections, describing them as “elections of dashed hopes, missed opportunities and failed efforts.”
