Who’s Afraid of Madam Governor?

Tunde Akanni writes about the need for women to seek governorship seats in their states to give room for proportionate political representation in line with the Increased Women Seat Bill currently before the 10th National Assembly.

The question is no longer whether Nigerian women are interested in power. The more honest question is whether Nigeria’s political architecture is genuinely prepared for women to exercise power without apology, patronage, or pity. The renewed campaign for increased women’s seats in the legislature has once again exposed the fault lines in our democratic imagination.

Obviously on account of its strong appeal, many citizens across gender divides freely support the idea. Some others, on the other hand, including some women, dismiss it as defeatist likening it to a charity-driven shortcut that undermines merit. Yet, beneath this argument lies a deeper fear: the discomfort with women not just participating in politics, but leading it.

Nigeria’s politics, noisy and competitive as it is, remains robustly masculine. From party structures to campaign financing, from godfatherism to violent primaries, politics is designed as a system that rewards brute endurance rather than broad-based inclusion. In such a terrain, women are routinely advised to “work harder,” “wait longer,” or “learn the ropes,” even when the ropes themselves are deliberately knotted against them. The agitation for reserved seats or affirmative quotas must therefore be understood not as a plea for pity, but as a strategic intervention in a structurally skewed system.

Critics of the campaign argue that conceding seats to women amounts to lowering the bar. They insist that politics should remain a free contest where only the strongest survive.

But this argument conveniently ignores the fact that the contest has never been free. It ignores the historical disadvantages women face in access to funding, party tickets, political networks, and even physical safety. To demand “equal competition” in an unequal field is not principled neutrality. Rather, it presents moral indifference disguised as fairness.

Globally, affirmative action has never been about replacing merit with mediocrity. Rather, it is about widening the gate so that merit, long suppressed by structural exclusion, can finally walk in. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which Nigeria endorsed with fanfare, are anchored on a simple but powerful philosophy: leave no one behind. Political parties that mouth this slogan in development conferences but ignore it in their internal power-sharing arrangements are guilty of selective idealism. If parties are sincere about inclusive growth and governance, then propping up more women should not be an afterthought; it should be a core democratic obligation.

Women, however, must also recognise that no liberation is handed down ready made.

Beyond advocacy, there is a compelling need for collectivisation. Nigerian women constitute a very significant percentage of the population, yet this numerical strength rarely translates into coordinated political muscle. Too often, women’s political engagement is fragmented by party loyalties, ethnic considerations, and elite patronage. The challenge before women is to build cross-party, cross-regional solidarities that can sway progressives and pragmatists alike—not with emotional appeals alone, but with disciplined organisation and ideological clarity.

The recent political journey of Senator Aisha “Binani” Dahiru in Adamawa State offers both inspiration and caution. Her near-emergence as Nigeria’s first elected female governor was a moment of collective pride for many women. Yet, the confusion, controversy, and ultimate frustration that followed her candidacy also exposed the perils of weak political anchorage.

Critics argue that her alignment with powerful but controversial political figures, including Atiku Abubakar, burdened by the infallible stamp of corruption by his own former boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, easily diminished her rating. Atiku is also notorious for frequent party switching, thus blurring her ideological compass and deepened uncertainty around her political project. Whether one agrees with these criticisms or not, the lesson is clear: women’s political advancement cannot rest solely on proximity to imagined male political titans whose interests may not align with long-term feminist or democratic goals.

This is why patience and political tutelage matter. Power is not only seized; it is also learned. Women aspiring to executive leadership must demonstrate readiness to understudy political colossi endowed with uncommon wits, strategic depth, and ideological consistency. Leadership, after all, is not a spontaneous performance; it is a cultivated craft.

As I once argued, enduring professionalism including political longevity and effectiveness are products of mentorship, intellectual discipline, and moral clarity. Women should not be ashamed to learn; neither should they be content with perpetual apprenticeship.

The international landscape offers both cautionary and encouraging examples. In the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris came close to history. Her journey to the threshold of the presidency underscores both the possibilities and the limits of representation within entrenched political systems. That she did not emerge president does not diminish her achievement; it highlights the persistence required to crack the highest glass ceilings.

Before Harris however, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf defied sceptics to become Liberia’s president, steering her country through post-conflict recovery and earning global respect. Her story remains a powerful rebuke to those who ask, often with thinly veiled cynicism, whether African women can lead nations.

So, who says Nigerian women cannot become governors—and ultimately president? Certainly not history. Certainly not logic. And certainly not competence. What stands in the way is not capacity, but courage: the courage of parties to institutionalise inclusion, the courage of men to relinquish monopolies of power, and the courage of women to insist on space without apology.

Reserved legislative seats, therefore, should be seen as transitional instruments, not permanent crutches. Their purpose is to normalise women’s presence in power, to break the myth that leadership is inherently male, and to create role models that can inspire younger generations. Once the terrain becomes less hostile and more inclusive, such measures may no longer be necessary. But to reject them now, in the name of abstract meritocracy, is to perpetuate a system that has already failed too many.

Ultimately, democracy thrives not when everyone competes under the same illusion of fairness, but when institutions consciously correct historical imbalances. A Nigeria that is afraid of a Madam Governor is a Nigeria afraid of its own potential. The campaign for increased women’s seats is not about charity.  It is indeed about justice, strategy, and the unfinished business of nation-building.

The real question, then, is not whether women are ready for power. It is whether Nigeria is ready to stop pretending that exclusion is excellence. In line  with the thesis of SDGs, for Nigeria, now is the time to  start building a democracy that truly leaves no one behind.

-Prof Akanni writes from Lagos.