Women are the fundamental human reservoir of every society. In the traditional societies of Africa and Asia, women represent the most essential ingredient in the formation of that all important bio-social group known as the family.
Women in most societies, whether developed or developing, are regarded as currency with which political and economic alliances are cemented. Thus in social anthropology, the transfer of women between lineages and clans is regarded as a medium of communication more potent and clearest than language itself (Coleman, 2007). As agents of procreation and child rearing women are the recognized agency for the extension and continuation of the human specie through the generations. The Industrial revolution in England and other parts of the Western world in the 18th century drastically altered the primary role of women in the society. Women thenceforth could be seen playing roles hitherto regarded as the exclusive reserves of men in the economic, political and social lives of the society.
In the African setting, Journal of Resourcefulness and Distinction, Volume No. 2, No.1, July, 2012.
      Women have played the role of breadwinners and decision-makers in many families in the event of the demise of the father of the house or inadequate male presence. This absence which could be brought about by death, sickness, old age or other forms of physical and mental incapacitation have thrust women in the centre stages for the performance of functions far removed from their traditional responsibility of House Keeping.
Fasugba (2000) argued that many women today are engaged in activities and jobs hitherto regarded as the exclusive reserve of men. He further states that since women have become conscious of their rights, they have continued to slug out with men in all areas of human endeavours.
In Nigeria today, the womenfolk have come a long way. In business, politics, education, sports and the professions. Women have made an indelible mark in their effort to conquer their limitations of the past which have sought to place them permanently in the kitchen and bedroom.
Be the above as it may, it is not all through a bed of roses for women and their empowerment. The above illustration is just about the infinitiesimal few number of women have been able to excel in their endeavours through their dinct of hardwork. The majority of women in Africa, Asia, and even Europe and America have not been fully mobilized and empowered to contribute to national development. If it had been so, we would not have been talking about good health for women, educational, economic, social cultural and political empowerment of women. And in all its ramifications, women would not have been segregated and discriminated against so much so that they are sexually tortured and harassed in their seeking for employment, contracts, political positions and in other endeavours.
In as much as this paper will present a review on the dehumanizing and traumatizing conditions of women, it will go further to take a detailed and critical look at the major indices of women participation in national development, vis-a-vis political, economic and educational considerations. How far has the Nigerian achieved self actualization in the above areas?
What are the major handicaps and challenges of women, and what more could be done to secure a better leverage for Nigerian women if they are to participate effectively, fully and more meaningfully in the development of the Nigerian nation in this 21st century?
Women: Nature and Conditions:
An overview women, described as the feminine gender are created by God for procreation and continuity. Unfortunately, they have been dehumanized and traumatized in so many ways of the 1.3 billion, people who live in abject poverty around the globe, 70 percent are women. For these women poverty dosen't just mean scarcity and want. It means rights denied opportunities curtailed and voices silenced.
According to Unagba (2006) Poverty is hunger, Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being Sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to school and know how to read and write. Poverty is not, having a job, is fear for the future, living for just one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, C.P.C. Onwubako.
Lack of representation and freedom. All these are majorly encountered and faced by women.
Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, according to United Nations Millennium Campaign (Unagba 2006) to halve world poverty by the year 2015. The overwhelming majority of the labour that sustain life-growing food, cooking, raising children, caring for the elderly, maintaining a house, hauling water - is done by women, and universally this work is accorded low status and no pay. The ceaseless cycle of labour rarely shows up in economic analysis of a society's production and value.
Women earn only 10 percent of the world's income. Where women work for money, they may be limited to a set of jobs deemed suitable for women invariably low pay, low status and positions.
Women owe less than 1 percent of the world's property. Where laws and customs prevent women from owning land or other productive assets, from getting loans or credit or from having the right to inheritance or to own their home, they have no assets leverage for economic stability and cannot invest in their own or their children's future.
Women made up of two-thirds of the estimated 876 millions adults worldwide who cannot read or write, and girls make up 60 percent of the 77 million children not attending primary school. Education is among the most important drivers of human development; women who are educated have fewer children than those who are denied schooling. They delay their first pregnancies, have healthier children. Each additional year of schooling a woman has is associated with a 5-10 percent decline in child deaths, according to the United Nations population fund (2010), and are far more likely to send their own children to school. Yet where women do not have the discretionary income to invest in their own or their children's education, where girls education is considered frivolous, and where girls are relied on to contribute labour to the household, they miss this unparalleled opportunity to develop their minds and spirits. Their countries suffer too. The World Bank (2009) estimated that nations in South Asia and Africa lose 5-1 percent growth in per-capital income per year compared to similar countries,where the girl child has greater access to quality basic education.
In many societies around the world, women never belong wholly to themselves, they are the property of others through out their life. Their physical well-being-health, security and bodily integrity-is often beyond their own control. Where women have no control over money, they cannot choose to get health care for themselves or their children. Where having a large number of children confers status on both men and women- indeed where child bearing may be the only marker of value available to women frequent pregnancy and labour can be deadly.
World Health Organization (2008) data indicate that in Afghanistan and Sierra loeone women's life-time chance of dying in child birth is one in seven, while in the United States it is one in 3,418 and in Norway and Switzerland, one in 7,300. In any given year, 15 percent of all pregnant women will face a life-threatening complication, and more than 500,000-99 percent of them in the developing world will die. Some 130 Empowerment of Nigerian Women Towards National Development.
Million girls and women, mostly in sub-saharan Africa have been subjected to genital cutting or mutilation of the behest of their parents, and 2 million more face the blade every year, according to the United Nations population find (2010).
Around the globe, home and community are not safe havens for a billion girls and women. At least one in three females on earth has been physically assaulted or sexually abused, often by a relative or acquaintance. In the worlds of Otiteh (2004) violence against women and girls rivals cancers as  a cause of morbidity and mortality for women of child-bearing age. Even within marriage, women may not be able to negotiate when and what type of sex to have, nor to protest their husband's multiple sex partners. Poverty and exclusion push some girls and women to engage in sex work, almost always the desperate, last choice of people without other choices.
According to the u.s. Department of state (2010) over 800,000 people are trafficked across International borders annually; 80 percent of these are women and girls, and the majority are forced into the sextrade.
And in the midst of conflict and natural disaster in countries around the world, Women's risk of violence skyrockets.
Systematic rape as a weapon of war has left millions of girls and women traumatized, forcibly impregnated, and/or HIV positive. These factors combine to explain why today more women than men around the world are HIV positive. In Sub-saharan Africa, more than twice as many young women as young men are living with HIV, according to International Labour Organisation (2009).
Political Awareness and Participation
Though it has been observed that Nigerian women have made some appreciable impact in their contributions to the development of the Nigerian nation. His indeed necessary to to have presented how these women have been dehumanized and traumatized. This is imperative because these water does not want to create any impression that it has been a bed of rocks for Nigerian women and indeed other women in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The active participation of a large  number of women in the political fora is strangely a new phenomenon. Although in the past, Nigeria has seen amazons like Margaret Ekpo, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, Madam Tinubu of lagos and a handful of other activist, women have often been relegated to the background in national politics.
This situation however seem to be changing as women are now making serious and appreciable impact in the political life of the country, especially since the 2005 Berjia Conference and women affirmative position (Aweh, 2006).
Emezi (1998) held the view that women have not featured meaningfully in Nigeria's political life. He opines that
"-- Looking back at the political development of this country an independent observer will conclude that women have contributed next to nothing in this very important aspect of human life. "He feels that the role of women in political matters is as minimal as it is in many other fields. The lateness of Nigerian women into Nigerian political arena has been blamed on the deliberate colonial policy of undermining the political zeal of the Nigerian woman (Coleman, 2007).
He argued that the effort of women were violently disrupted by the colonial experience. Women seemed to be the most hard hit, for with their western pre-conception of female inferiority the colonial administrators tended to relegate women to the background of irrelevance in the scheme of governance.
It is instructive to note at this point that in the last forty to fifty years, Nigerian women have created a noticeable impact in the political life of the nation. In the traditional African Society, several factors combined to the second fiddle role and participation in national affairs. Such factors include cultural placements, religious belief systems and prejudices. Despite these serious handicaps or impediments which are actively exploited by the menfolk, Nigerian women have been seen to break even, such that today they have become a force to reckon within the developmental processes of the nation.