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http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp016t053j78s| Title: | The Concept of First Lady and Politics in Nigeria |
| Contributors: | Ajayi, Kunle |
| Keywords: | Women Political activity Nigeria Social conditions Presidential spouses |
| Issue Date: | 2010 |
| Publisher: | CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) |
| Place of Publication: | Dakar, Senegal |
| Series/Report no.: | CODESRIA Monograph Series |
| Description: | The First Lady’s office has had a revolutionary transformation in Nigerian politics since Babangida’s military presidency. Successive first ladies, particularly Maryam Babangida, Maryam Abacha and Stella Obasanjo, have jettisoned the traditional inactiveness hitherto associated with the office to play a vanguard role in feminist advocacies. These first ladies have utilized their offices and pet projects as gender-mainstreaming platforms to negotiate the corridor of power for women. The impetus for this study was propelled by the need to evaluate the value of the phenomena of the transformed First Lady’s office and the gapclosing interventionist programmes geared towards mitigating women’s marginalization and their oppression in politics in Nigeria. In spite of the first ladies’ efforts, sexism remains a major characteristic of the Nigerian government and politics. The study, through a countrywide probabilistic field survey, has discovered that the gender mainstreaming and feminine empowerment potentials and capabilities of the first ladies have been weakened by two similar and complementary forces. One is the inordinate ambition of the first ladies’ husbands to remain in power. The second is that as long as their husbands remain in power, they too will continue to enjoy the admirable power, influence, fame and pecuniary gains accruing from the First Lady’s office. The study equally brings to the fore the fact that rationalizations for female marginality in politics transcend the traditional stereotype biases against women. Women also need to contend with intra-gender, same-sex marginality, implying women’s marginalization by women. Common-gender, same-sex biases and discrimination, therefore, manifest the self-endangering nature of Nigerian women, and indeed, the paradox of gender inclusion and gender justice in Nigeria’s politics. |
| URI: | http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp016t053j78s |
| ISSN: | 978-2-86978-304-1 |
| Related resource: | http://www.codesria.org |
| Appears in Collections: | Serials and series reports (Publicly Accessible) - CODESRIA |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kunle_Ajayi_The_Concept_of_First_Lady.pdf | 403.83 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Download |
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