 Welcome back to the Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. It's now time for a conversation surrounding women and politics and we know that the Nigerian Senate right now basically lawmakers in Nigeria are starting to have a conversation about having more women representation in Parliament, having more women sit and this conversation actually began in April 28th 2021 and we've invited Evin and Ube to discuss this with us. Good morning. Good morning. Okay so first of all women participation in politics in Nigeria is very low but I think this you know generally stems from a misunderstanding that it's un-African for women to lead because when we look at pre-colonial Nigeria you saw that women dominated politics and military. There was you know Queen Amina of Zaria, Queen Mauremi, you know there were female in Nigeria, you know females or Mouroud alongside Ube in Onitsha. So women were very active in politics in pre-colonial Nigeria but it has changed you know what the current realities are. So why do you think you know these changes have been made and how can women begin to retrace our steps back to you know equitable political representation in Nigeria? So I quite agree I agree with you. If you trace the history of Nigeria particularly in terms of women's participation in governance in pre-colonial structures women were active players in decision-making. We had the in the Europe and we had the Eyalogias. We had the Queen Amina taking active role in decision-making but over time I think I can infer that the British colonial systems eroded the role of women or women's participation in decision-making. They enforced what I call the Victorian H-style in their colonies and I also I strongly believe that the colonial masters were threatened by the resistance the Nigerian women were pulling at that time. We had the above women's riots, we had the above women's riots resisting exploitative colonial practices. Over time women have continually and persistently been excluded from decision-making. Since 1999 the statistics of women in politics particularly in parliament and from the national to the local level has declined and then Nigerian women are not quiet Nigerian women are taking active and making active roles to reclaim their space in decision-making. For example let's go ahead you know but I was going to just quickly mention the bill the bill that has been pushed forward to amend the 1999 constitution to have an extra slot for in the Senate for women that should be set for women so if we have three senators for its state now it's going to be four and the fourth one is going to be for women and some other you know alterations do you think that might might be the answer or should we just ease off our political process and electoral process to make it more to make it a lot easier for women to participate. Now there has been a lot of debates around the special seats 101 seats for women in the national parliament both the Senate and the House of Representatives. For us we feel that's a temporal but not a sustainable solution. There's a 35 percent affirmative action for inclusion of women which is also standard in other African countries like Kenya, Eritrea and Uganda. That's the standard of practice which for us is more sustainable and then we also feel making the electoral systems more inclusive particularly of gender is also a more sustainable way to go about it. For instance enforcing that at the political party level is also a critical issue of contention. Yes the reserve seat for women is good, is a temporal measure but women want to see 35 percent affirmative action for women, 35 percent representation of women in decision making and more of an electoral systems that is more inclusive which for us is a more sustainable way to go about. Yeah there's also the Rwandan example. There's also the Rwandan example a lot of people have mentioned Rwanda as one of the countries that is leading with regards to female representation in governance and in politics but I also want you to you know speak on the you know yes we're speaking now about 101 extra seats in the Senate and National Assembly and all of that but you know we seem to be ignoring the fact that women can also get involved in other levels of governance and that is in the local levels the council levels the state levels House of Assembly and the state House of Assembly and the likes. Are these also part of the conversation or is it just the National Assembly? Okay now that has been the challenge in the past but in the current push for constitutional amendment women are also pushing for what we call twinning in the constitutional amendment for which it's going to cut across both the national up to across the three tiers of government the national the state and the local level for example if there's a male president there should be a female deputy if there's a male speaker both at the national and state level there there should be a female a female deputy that is to say one sex should not dominate you know both positions both appointed and political positions at the national up to the state and local level and then currently women are organizing to participate in all the public hearings both at the zonal and the national level so we're breaking through we're organizing we're pushing forward to ensure that these recommendations or these amendments does not just happen at the national level but also trickle down to the other levels of governments which is the state and the local level. Okay I think we can wrap it up here we wish of course there was more time to expand shape on this conversation but Evelyn would definitely be speaking with you again and following up on this bill thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you. And this is where we wrap up the program on a Tuesday morning if you missed out on any of the conversations we spoke about Ned Walker and of course women in governance join us on our social media platforms it's pretty simple at plus tv africa facebook twitter instagram and same with our youtube channel. Indeed I am Annette Felix saying have a great day