Introduction
1.1 Background To The Study
This work assesses the public perception of women participation in politics in dutsin-ma local government area of katsina state.
Political participation according to Anifowose (2004), is a sin-qua-none for democracy, as democracy involves a commitment to equal opportunity for male and women to be involved in decision making in their immediate society.
Political participation involves these voluntary activities such as attending rallies, vying for position and party office, involving campaigns, voting and expressing oneself to political stimuli. However, the pursuit of these democratic principles, according to Anifowose (2004) shows that women are generally less empowered and apathetic. In general, participation are lower among women than men. Women are less well informed about issues and less able to identify public figures, less able several point of view, less likely to be concerned with issues in elections, Anifowose (2004).
For a long period of time, it is seen as if women largely accepted as “natural” the difference in their opportunities as relatively few women raise their voice in protest. Recently however, more and more women in countries have established women movement to protect and change not only discriminatory practice against themselves and society and began to participate in political affairs of their country. In some countries, women have struggle to gain political leadership, thus as rightly pointed out by Anofowose (2004), in 1979 Mrs. Margret Thatcher became great Britain’s first woman prime minister, the republic of Ireland voted into office Mrs. Mary Bobinson as women president. In other nations like India, Srilanka , Pakistan, Philippines and Israel, women have also occupied some sensitive political leadership position. Similarly, in Rwanda and South Africa 56.3% and 42.5% respectively of their national parliament comprised of women (international parliamentary union IPU, 2010). The Nigerian women have not been left out in this struggle as women organization are formed for “consciousness raising” campaigns to help women discover and develop new orientation (Lane,1958:209) Greinstein,(961:345).
A few Nigerian women have shunned apathy and demonstrated interest in the political affairs of their country. In 1999, for instance Hon (Mrs.), Margret Icheen who emerged as the speaker of Benue state house of assembly, became the first woman speaker of a house of assembly in Nigeria and the African continent. The farthest Nigeria has gone in achieving this is the appointment of 13 female minister by president Goodluck Jonathan, (UN women, 2014). Although, in the southern part of the country, the participation of women in politics has been on the increase in recent time, with the emergence of female deputy governor in Osun, Ekiti, and Lagos state. However in the north, little or nothing has been achieved in respect to political participation of women (Afolabi MM, 2009), making a study of this nature very imperative.
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