As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections, a small yet important group of women are competing for space on the country’s highest political platform, with backgrounds ranging from grassroots mobilisation and party administration to public health, humanitarian work, entertainment and entrepreneurship.
However, while their emergence offers a glimpse of women increasingly seeking space at the highest level of politics, the substitution of Anita Zugwai-Chukwu by the Young Progressives Party (YPP) means that only two women now remain in the presidential campaign, according to the latest development.
Daily Trust reports that women contesting in the emerging 2027 contest include Ada Elizabeth Fredrick Okwori of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Esther Nkem Okereke of the National Rescue Movement (NRM), Hajja Bintu Konto of the Labour Party (LP) and Ofordile Peace Egobia of the Action Peoples Party (APP).
Okwori and Okereke are contesting for the presidency while Konto and Egobia are campaigning for the vice presidency. Ndidi Patience Key was also nominated as the running mate to the new presidential candidate who replaced Zugwai-Chukwu on the YPP platform.
Zugwai-Chukwu had already made history as the first female presidential flag bearer of the YPP after she was adopted unopposed at the party’s national convention in Abuja on May 30, 2026. But the party has already replaced her with Peter Agada as its presidential flag bearer.
The development emphasises the precarious nature of women’s representation in the upper echelons of Nigerian politics. Africans & the Diaspora
The ladies who wish to lead
The party’s structures across the country have adopted the national chairman of the NDP, Ada Okwori, as the party’s presidential candidate through a consensus procedure.
Okwori is an Idoma from Benue State, who hails from Otukpo and has been active in politics through the Peoples Democratic Party and grassroots mobilisation. She started Ward2Ward, an organization that encourages political participation at the community level.
Her political agenda revolves around grassroots engagement, inclusion of women and young people, social welfare and infrastructural development. She has also been against the influence of money politics and political god-fathers.
Her immediate problem is translating that grassroots identification into national exposure and organization in a crowded presidential field.
Esther Nkem Okereke has possibly the most eccentric profile among presidential hopefuls.
She is a Nollywood actor, film producer and is also into the entrepreneurship, philanthropy and investment. After a tough battle with other hopefuls, she emerged as the NRM’s presidential candidate in the party’s convention in Abuja on May 29, 2026.
Her “ESTHER Agenda” is built around Education, Security, Technology, Housing, Entrepreneurship, and Restitution. She named instability, poverty, unemployment, corruption and institutional flaws as some of the country’s principal challenges.
Vise presidential tickets feature women from equally diverse origins.
The Labour Party’s running partner to Dr Chibuzo Sunday Okereke, Hajja Bintu Konto, is a senior public health and humanitarian practitioner with over three decades of experience in health care, community development and humanitarian assistance.
She worked with Catholic Relief Services including deployments in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states where she participated in programs assisting disadvantaged communities and internally displaced populations.
Her professional interests have encompassed public health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, humanitarian response and community development. She has a master’s degree in public health and community health education experience.
Kabiru’s running companion is the APP vice-presidential candidate, Ofordile Peace Egobia. In comparison, there is still relatively little publicly available information on her career and political past compared to the other women.
Patience Ndidi Key (PNK) is a Nigerian healthcare expert, entrepreneur and politician located in the US and running partner to Peter Agada of the YPP. Africans & Diaspora
She replaces Anita Zugwai-Chukwu who was earlier announced as Agada’s running mate.
Key is the President and CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Chamber of Commerce (NiDCC) and is involved in Nigerian politics. She had earlier contested for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) ahead of the 2023 election.
The picture of progress is mixed
“It matters that we have women on presidential and vice presidential tickets.” But given the context of Nigeria’s political past, it also speaks of how little has changed.
Of the 19 presidential contenders identified for the 2027 contest, three were women, around 16 percent of the field, before the YPP substitution. In the latest twist, Zugwai-Chukwu has been replaced and there are now only two women on the presidential candidates’ list.
In 2015, there was one woman who ran for president and four women who were candidates for vice president. By 2019, there were five female presidential contenders and 23 female vice-presidential candidates.
But in 2023 there was just one female presidential candidate and no women on a vice-presidential ticket.
The image is considerably more discouraging if one turns from contenders to office-holders.
Since the return to democratic governance in 1999, women continue to be considerably under-represented in the National Assembly. Since 1999 there have been roughly 20 female deputy governors but no woman has yet been elected as governor of any state. They account for little under 3.7 per cent of senators and 4.4 per cent of members of the House of Representatives in the 10th National Assembly. Fourteen state assemblies have no women at all.
The discrepancy has also drawn international attention. Nigeria is among the 10 countries in the world with the least women’s representation in national parliaments, according to 2023 data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Africans and Diaspora
According to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, Nigeria is ranked 143 out of 144 nations in women’s political engagement.
This is despite the Revised National Gender Policy 2021-2026 which approved a 35 percent affirmative-action target for women’s participation in political and public decision-making.
The reasons behind the disparity
For women, mustering the fortitude to run for political office is only part of the challenge.
Party gatekeeping, the expense of elections, political violence, patronage networks and social expectations of women’s role still determine who gains access to political power.
Politics in Nigeria is highly dependent on money and networks formed over many years. Women, even with the qualifications and ambition, frequently find it hard to compete without similar access to financial resources and political systems. Africans and Diaspora
They also deal with sorts of scrutiny that could be less evident for male politicians. Marital status, looks, family obligations, age and personal life can be things that are used against women in political attacks, while harassment and gendered abuse, particularly online, have often deterred women from standing for 33office.
Irene Awunah-Ikyegh, president of the League of Women Voters of Nigeria, told Daily Trust that women remained key in elections as voters, grassroots mobilisers, campaign organisers and supporters but their contribution has not translated into commensurate representation in party leadership, candidate selection or elected office.
Political parties must go beyond promises and develop measurable strategies for women’s inclusion with defined targets at the presidential, governorship, National Assembly and state assembly levels ahead of 2027, she added.
Maryam Baba Mohammed, chairperson and founder of the Women in Leadership Initiative, also said she was worried about the prominence of female candidates.
“What they are, and what they stand for, is not being said or is being said very little about by the media,” she added, claiming that women typically compete at a disadvantage because of differences in campaign financing and access to political resources.
She called for the adoption of the proposed 35 per cent affirmative-action policy, and asked the media to offer female candidates fair and prolonged coverage so that voters may grasp their backgrounds, policies and leadership ambitions.
Similarly, Faiz Mohammed, an advocate for women’s growth in finance, digital innovation, entrepreneurship and political engagement, emphasised that “placing women on electoral tickets should not be mistaken for meaningful inclusion.”
“Women need access to political power, campaign finance, party structures and grassroots networks for them to have a realistic chance of winning,” he said.
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