Condition of Women in Nigeria: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Nigeria is the Africa’s most populous nation with approximate 180 million citizens (CIA World FactBook, 2015) and diverse. Around 50% of them are Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo tribes. These tribes dominated two main regional parts of the country namely: North and South. Muslims majority from the North and/or minority in the South account for more than 50% of the entire population, 40% are Christians mainly in the South with significant amount in the North. 10% are traditional African believes. Despite various efforts and concerns show by local and international human rights groups, women, who account almost half of the entire population, are generally lagged behind in all aspects of life (economically, socially, politically and intellectually). The current dimensional studies lead to discover that modern Nigerian women are on the lowest rung of poverty condition. Intellectually, higher proportion of Nigerian men goes to school than that of women, thus neither their participation in forming nor administering the government is yet matured. Perhaps, religion and tradition are used as instruments of women oppression in Nigeria.