The role of technology in encouraging women's political engagement

In healthy democracies, citizens (including men and women) are allowed to participate in political life, including running for office, voting, and evaluating government performance. Unfortunately, the political rights of Nigerian women, who account for 49.4% of the country’s 214 million people, remain a major worry. The Nigerian constitution guarantees that every citizen, regardless of gender, colour, or ethnicity, has the right to run for office and vote. However, this does not guarantee effective political representation for the majority of Nigerian women. This is partly due to the country’s structures, patriarchal culture, and religious ideologies, which provide women with uneven opportunities compared to men, thereby excluding them from democratic processes.

Activists, governments, and non-governmental organizations continue to pursue a variety of strategies to help women overcome barriers to action in many countries around the world, including rallying support for protest and mass action, as well as educating and mobilizing women to vote. Thankfully, these efforts, combined with technological advancements and digital media, have transformed the way women participate in political activities in recent decades. Despite the potential of technology, Nigerian women face considerable obstacles such as a lack of education, financial limits, inadequate internet connectivity, and geographic isolation. However, the essential question remains: how can technology be used to improve the quality of Nigerian democracy by increasing women’s participation?

Context of the Evaluation

In Nigeria, the current National Gender Policy (NGP) proposes 35 percent affirmative action and a more inclusive representation of women in elective political and appointive public sector jobs. Nonetheless, the national average of women in elective and appointive positions in Nigeria was 6.7 percent in 2016, far behind the global average of 22.5 percent, the Africa Regional Average of 23.4 percent, and the West African Sub Regional Average of 15 percent (Oluyemi, 2016). After over two decades of uninterrupted democratic rule, Nigeria has yet to produce a female governor in any of the Federation’s 36 states (1999-2022).

As a result, this piece offers a critical assessment of the role of technology in encouraging women’s political engagement in Kontagora, Niger State.

Details of the Evaluation

Over the course of two weeks in January 2022, door-to-door interviews were done with 113 women from 30 randomly selected families in the Ungwan Zuru, Kawo, and Tudun Wada areas of Kontagora, Niger State. This survey strategy was ideal for getting data in these areas when phone sampling was not feasible.

Even when access to technology did not improve, it was discovered that women who got political sensitization from NGOs and political parties had 5 to 10% greater levels of political awareness than other women. In households with literate young women who had access to technological devices and digital media, 40% of respondents said the internet gave fresh information on the importance of women’s political participation. I also discovered three young women who are exceptionally active in online political activism for women, however, they only account for roughly 2% of the total number of replies. The remaining respondents (27 % of interviewees) are disengaged, meaning they are not interested in any political activity, whether online or offline.

I discovered that the majority of the women had little interest in political participation equality. The data also reveal that financially empowered and informed women are more likely than the rest of the female population to participate actively in politics.

Policy Lessons

There have been discussions about online activism ahead of Nigeria’s 2023 General Elections, implying that technology could engage more individuals, notably women who have traditionally been less engaged in offline politics. However, Shedrack Muazu, Team Lead of Youths in Justice, Health, and Sustainable Social Inclusion (YIJHSSI), believes that the efficacy of technology-based attempts to combat political marginalization may be contingent on the channel used. ‘I feel that, for the time being, sending tailored SMS to urge women to participate in politics and reminding registered voters of voting dates would be a more successful engagement tool than Twitter or Facebook action,’ Muazu explains.

However, David Ali, a civil servant, believes that increasing voter accessibility is the best way to use technology to address women’s underrepresentation in politics. ‘I anticipate that Nigeria will revolutionize the voting system in the near future to provide all citizens the option of voting from their homes,’ Ali says. “Rather than using a paper-based system, everyone, including women, should be able to vote using a mobile device or an online voting system.” This would also result in more accurate and timely election results.”

‘Artificial intelligence technology will improve Nigeria’s electoral process and increase political representation for women,’ Eze Hanson, an ICT expert, reiterates this idea. We all know that artificial intelligence has a lot of superior memory than humans! Women will be more educated and motivated to exercise their civic rights as a result of AI.”

This article is part of Anibe Idajili’s Gidan Yanci Fellowship series, which aims to encourage women to get involved in politics.