WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN NIGERIA: AN EXAMINATION OF SDG GOAL 5

In order to determine the current state of women's leadership and political participation in Nigeria, identify obstacles that prevent women from actively participating in politics and leadership roles, and investigate nen's and women's attitudes and perceptions regarding women's participation in politics and leadership oles in Nigeria, this study looked at women's leadership and political participation in Nigeria: an xamination of SDG (Goal 5). The liberal feminism and Kanter's glass ceiling theories provided the heoretical framework for this research. The descriptive correlational design was adopted for this study; one hundred and twenty respondents (120) were sampled from the study area, the simple random sampling and purposive sampling were adopted as the sampling techniques for the study. Primary data vas collected through direct delivery and retrieval of the questionnaires in the study area by researcher issistants, key informant interviews were conducted via telephone involving five (5) female politicians. The findings revealed that while women were actively involved in electoral process, particularly the 2023 eneral elections with about 44,414,846 (47.5%) of registered voters, there are only a few of them ccupying leadership positions; elective and appointive, with a total female representation in the 469-nember Assembly to just 4.2%, 6 female deputy governors out of 36 deputies and only 8 female ministers n the cabinet of 48 ministers. Gender discrimination, political violence and thuggery, financial constraint, cultural and religious beliefs were identified as the major barriers hindering women's active participation in politics and the obstacle to their ascension to leadership positions. Surprisingly, while the majority of respondents 41.7% prefer equality in leadership positions and 35.7% who prefer women's leadership as compared to 8.7% who will rather have men occupying leadership positions, their opinions doesn't •eflect the current reality of the few women occupying elective and appointive in Nigeria. In light of these indings, the study suggested among other things that; there is an urgent need for the introduction of quota ystem at all levels of government and engagement of relevant stakeholders such as Independent National Electoral Commission and political parties to ensure strict adherence to it, the National Gender Policy NGP) recommendation of 35% affirmative action for a more inclusive representation of women both in elective and appointive positions should have a binding framework on government at all levels.