BUHARI’S ADMINISTRATION AND THE MITIGATION OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Gender-based violence, which is a pervasive issue today, is described by the United Nations as a harmful act perpetrated against a person’s will, whereby ending it can increase economic activity and assist in achieving inclusive and sustainable development. Several administrations in Nigeria had attempted to mitigate and possibly eliminate this challenge to no avail. This paper therefore examine the efforts of the Buhari administration and in particular those new strategies to combat the shadow pandemic. It argues that the hallmarks of president Buhari’s legacy in combating Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Nigeria lies in the multi-dimensional and multi-sectorial approaches adapted to mitigating the menace in its entire ramification.  This approaches that is comparable only to the holistic effort to combat the HIV/AIDs pandemic; was aimed at addressing the root causes of the menace such as the perversive social norms which enable sexual and gender-based violence to strive. The approach harmonizes the efforts of both national, international none governmental organizations to provide treatment and cancelling for victims. While referral centers  that have been established will not only reduce the issue of stigma and perverse social norms which enable sexual and gender-based violence to strive but will promote the persecution of culprits. More fundamentally, the administration’s  lunch of the National strategy to end child marriage in the country was kind of its own and has the capacity to reduce intimate partner violence in the Northern part of the country. The paper recommends that the  Tinibu administration not abandon such initiatives that can drastically reduce sexual and gender-based violence in the country.