MUSLIM WOMEN AND THE NIGERIAN PARTY POLITICS

Abstract

Women’s participation in party politics in Nigeria has been largely marginal. This has led to the clamour for more involvement of women in political decisions and increased presence in political sphere. The objective of this paper is to examine the participation of Muslim women in the Nigerian party politics. Muslim women have made significant contributions in Nigerian society through their efforts in educational, economic, health, and humanitarian services i.e. playing a social responsibility role. Descriptive and analytical methods were adopted for this purpose. The study revealed that the involvement of Muslim women in party politics in Nigeria was impeded by cultural and religious bottlenecks and not lack of participation. It concluded that emphasis should be placed on the complementarity roles between men and women in order to suppress the intolerance often encounter by Muslim women in Nigeria party politics. Hence, there is a need for the existing political parties and most especially the ruling party to take advantage of the complementary differences in order to create balance in political decision-making.