Tokenism and women’s political communication in the pursuit of gender egalitarianism in Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract With all gender bills presented to Nigeria’s Federal House of Assembly rejected in March 2022, women suffered an outrageous backlash in their pursuit of gender egalitarianism. This affirms tokenism and the government’s feigned commitment to gender parity. Reckoning that women’s political participation should augment their political representation, this article interrogates the political communication tactics of selected women in politics and non-state actors who fought for the bills. By engaging methods of critical analysis and reconstructive argumentation, we use the concept of “Feminist African Political Communication” (Feminist Afropolicom) to: (1) foreground African communicative experiences and tactics adopted by the women; (2) interrogate how tokenism trumps women’s political communication; and (3) examine how such tactics address questions of agency, space, and power.