Politics & Elections · Women in parliament · Nigeria
Nigeria’s women in parliament rose to 4.2% of seats in 2025.
4.2% of seats
2025
Up 0.3 pp from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
4.2% of seats
What it is. This measure counts the share of seats in the lower or single house of a national parliament that are held by women. The Inter-Parliamentary Union collects the figures and the World Bank republishes them. It records who holds a seat, so it says nothing about which committees women chair, how much they speak or whether they hold cabinet posts. It also covers only the national chamber, so state assemblies and local councils do not enter the count.
Higher is better. A higher share means the chamber that writes laws and approves budgets draws on a wider part of the population, which is why higher is better here. The latest figure is 4.2% of seats in January 2025, up from 3.9% a year earlier, a rise of 0.3 percentage points. Since 2016 the range runs from a low of 3.4% of seats in January 2019 to a high of 7.2% of seats in January 2020. The current level therefore sits much closer to the bottom of that range than to the top.
Why it matters. With women holding about four seats in every hundred, most Nigerian households have few women among the legislators who vote on taxes, schools, health spending and family law. Bills on those subjects are debated in a chamber that is overwhelmingly male. Anyone tracking change can check the next January reading against the 2020 high of 7.2% of seats.
| Period | Women in parliament · Nigeria |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 5.6% of seats |
| 2017 | 5.6% of seats |
| 2018 | 5.6% of seats |
| 2019 | 3.4% of seats |
| 2020 | 7.2% of seats |
| 2021 | 3.6% of seats |
| 2022 | 3.6% of seats |
| 2023 | 3.9% of seats |
| 2024 | 3.9% of seats |
| 2025 | 4.2% of seats |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Women in parliament, Nigeria, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/elections/women-in-parliament/nigeria
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Methodology
Share of seats held by women in the national parliament (lower or single house), from the Inter-Parliamentary Union via the World Bank. Unit: % of seats.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series SG.GEN.PARL.ZS), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.