Impediments to Women's Participation in Politics in Nigeria

Women are no longer participating actively in political affairs in Nigeria Rivers East Senatorial District in particular due to some impediments such as male chauvinism, socioeconomic background and stigmatization. Thus, the study investigated impediments to women's participation in politics in Rivers East senatorial district. It adopted a survey research design. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study comprised the entire eligible voters in Rivers East Senatorial District numbering; 2,670,903. A sample of 600 was drawn from the population using a cluster sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a researcher-developed instrument titled: "Impediments to Women's Participation in Politics Scale". The instrument was validated based on face and content validation. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was determined to be .85 using the test re-test method.  Mean scores, standard deviation and independent samples t-tests were used to analyse the data that ensued from the study. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while an independent samples t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study revealed that male chauvinism, socioeconomic background and stigmatization differ in the extent to which they impede participation in politics along the lines of the demographic variables under investigation. Only the extents to which socioeconomic background and stigmatization impedes participation in politics in Rivers East Senatorial District.