Gender Relations and Traditional Authorities in Africa

Gender relations encompass the processes, which determine the power, status or position of women vis-a-vis men in decision-making. Previous studies provided explanation on why women are excluded in governance at the federal, states and local governments’ levels in Nigeria. Women’s recurrent protests of their exclusion from key decision-making platforms in Nigeria, and in the Niger Delta as this study shows, have resulted in their facing undue disadvantages or even violence. However, limited research exist on specific mechanisms, processes and structures that produce such exclusions from key decision-making at the level of traditional authorities in the Niger Delta, hence this study examined gender relations and traditional authorities in selected communities in the Niger Delta.