Abstract

As from 1979, the United Nations formally seeks to achieve equilibrium in the involvement of women in relation to men in the public domain through the adoption and ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Nigeria both ratified and domesticated the core provision of this convention as its National Constitution of 1999 affirms the equality and right of all citizens to freedom from discrimination. Besides, from 2006 to 2021, Nigeria operated an exclusive gender policy namely, the National Gender Policy 2006, which by its affirmative action, reserved 35 percent of all appointive positions in government to women, as a means of protecting women’s rights and redressing inequalities in the involvement of women and men in governance processes. Regrettably, the National Gender Policy (NGP) 2006 recorded no substantial achievement in terms of its intended objectives as the policy encountered several structural and institutional challenges arising from the entrenched patriarchal system in Nigerian societies, and the absence of a united women’s movement in the country, among others. Resultantly, the study concludes that, for the NGP 2021 to realize its aims, Nigerian women’s movements need to embark on vigorous and unceasing campaigns to deconstruct the existing patriarchal system, and that all women’s movements in Nigeria need to form a central body and maintain a common front to better advocate for the implementation of 35 percent affirmative action in the new policy, among other measures. The study relies on secondary sources of data, including books, journals, relevant publications of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the websites. The data were analyzed using the thematic and descriptive-interpretive techniques of qualitative data analysis, which enhanced satisfactory achievement of the objective of the study.