Parties Politics and Gender Preference in Nigerian Legislature.

Law makers on the legislative houses in Nigeria are elected by a party members and the electorate. The members of legislative chambers are constituted through competitive periodic elections to represent different interests recognised by the electorate. Interest desiring representation has included gender, environment, economic, religion, political party, ethnic, and many more. While there are diverse interests requiring representation, the issue of gender representation forms the basic interest of the study. The reason is due to the observed predominance of males over females in gender representation in elective governmental positions while the constitution allows for equal opportunity in democracy. The study appraised the role of political parties in gender representation on the Nigerian legislative chambers and gender preference by the electorate for political parties' performance in legislative elections was analysed. The study adopted a qualitative research design in which data were sourced from secondary sources. The study revealed that political parties do not have any reservation for gender in the presentation of candidates for election. The study noted that that the choice of voter is beyond gender. The study concludes that gender issues in elections may be one of the many factors influencing voter's decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]