INEC’s final candidate list shows that women remain significantly underrepresented in the race for Nigeria’s National Assembly, despite making up more than half of new voter registrations in the latest CVR exercise.
Women account for only 443 of the 4,408 candidates cleared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to contest seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly in the 2027 elections, highlighting the continued gap between women’s participation as voters and their presence in political office.
The final list released by INEC shows that women make up about 10 per cent of all candidates contesting the Senate and House of Representatives, with men accounting for 3,965 candidates.
For the Senate, 115 of the 1,195 candidates are women, while 328 women are among the 3,213 candidates contesting seats in the House of Representatives.
The figures reinforce a disparity previously highlighted by INEC: Nigerian women are a substantial part of the electorate, but their participation has not translated into comparable representation among those seeking political office.
During the third phase of the 2026 Continuous Voter Registration exercise, women accounted for 52.68 per cent of the 3.87 million newly registered voters as of July 26.
The latest candidate figures suggest that the challenge facing women in Nigerian politics lies beyond getting women to register and vote. The larger gap emerges at the stages of securing party tickets, financing campaigns and becoming competitive candidates.
The distribution of female candidates also varies significantly across the country. Jigawa, Nasarawa, Niger and Yobe have no female candidates contesting Senate seats, while Akwa Ibom has the highest number with 10. Rivers, Kwara and Osun each have seven female senatorial candidates, while Anambra, Enugu and Bayelsa have six each.
Party figures reveal another layer of the disparity. The All Progressives Congress (APC), which has 109 senatorial candidates, fielded only four women for Senate seats. The Action Peoples Party (APP) and African Action Congress (AAC) also fielded four women each.
The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) recorded the highest number of female candidates across both chambers, with 11 women contesting Senate seats and 42 contesting House of Representatives seats.
The final list comes after years of calls for greater representation of women in elective positions, including demands for the implementation of Nigeria’s 35 per cent affirmative action target.
The issue is particularly significant ahead of the January 16, 2027 presidential and National Assembly elections, as the final candidate list now provides a clearer picture of who will be competing for political power.
Among the women contesting are incumbent Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who is seeking re-election, and former senator Nkechi Nwaogu, who is contesting the Abia Central senatorial seat under the Nigeria Democratic Congress.
At the presidential level, INEC’s final list also contains two female candidates — Ada Elizabeth Frederick Okwori of the National Democratic Party and Nkem Esther Okereke of the National Rescue Movement.
The numbers mean that women will enter the 2027 elections as a significant force among voters but a much smaller presence among those seeking to become lawmakers.
For Nigerian women, the gap is not simply about the number of women appearing on the ballot. It also raises questions about who gets access to political opportunities, party structures, campaign resources and the pathways that lead from participating in elections to shaping decisions within government.
As the 2027 elections approach, the figures highlight a continuing reality: women are participating in Nigeria’s democracy, but that participation is still not translating into equal representation in political leadership.
For INEC and political parties, the figures bring the question raised by the commission ahead of the election back into focus: if women are participating in Nigeria’s democracy in large numbers at the ballot box, what is preventing that participation from translating into political representation?
