Acceptable minimum threshold of universal access to social services for women in Nigeria : a review of selected issues in the national gender policy

Abstract

Efforts at guaranteeing gender equality and women’s empowerment in Nigeria reached its crescendo with the approval of the National Gender Policy (NGP) in 2006 by the Federal Executive Council, which came into effect in 2007. Objective 5 target (a) of the policy seeks to provide equal opportunities for women [and men] to enjoy and attain an acceptable minimum threshold of universal access to potable water and sanitation, electricity, transportation, and general security of life and property by the year 2015. At present, very few reviews have been done on that policy target. As a result, this paper adopts a literature review approach to review the performance of the NGP with regard to the target in question. Our findings show that the NGP does not offer quantifiable benchmarks for effective evaluation of the target of study, and just as in the pre-NGP era, in the post-NGP era in Nigeria, access to the concerned social services has been inequitable in favour of men, largely as a result of leadership failure in terms of lack of political will to implement the provisions of the NGP, corruption, and administrative lapses as well other social and cultural issues linked to patriarchy, knowledge, research and data limitations. Suggestions for improvement, for example, the non-politicization of women empowerment programmes, special women-alone initiatives, among others, are equally made.