Nigeria’s Bloated Recurrent Expenditure: Interrogating the National Assembly’s Proposed Additional Constituencies for Women

Abstract: Women representative in Nigeria executive and parliament has since 1999 continuously beaten a spiral downward trend from 35/7% in 2014 to 19/6% in 2021. This has generated debates on the need for mechanisms to engender gender inclusiveness in Nigeria. Therefore, the stride of the National Assembly to proffer a modus Vivendi to this political malaise is a welcome development. However, there are already two contending debates which the National Assembly’s additional constituencies will compound in Nigeria: over bloated recurrent expenditure and National Assembly budget. This paper examines the problems and prospects of the National Assembly’s proposed additional constituencies for women in an era of bloated recurrent expenditure in Nigeria. Using the post-colonial state and women’s empowerment framework of analysis and qualitative method of research, the paper argues that rather that filling the gap of women participation in Nigeria politics, additional constituencies for women shall aggravate two already existing problems in Nigeria: bloated recurrent expenditure, National Assembly budget and two other new ones. This paper concludes that Nigeria’s First Past the Post Electoral System has never engendered inclusive participation anywhere in the world and recommend that the National Assembly should rather change the electoral system to the Proportional Representative System.

Key words: bloated-legislature, recurrent-expenditure, proportional-representation, women-participation

JEL code: K