Sen. Franca Afegbua who is the first female Senator in Nigeria has been confirmed dead at the age of 81.
She was reported to have died in Benin City, in a private hospital after battling an undisclosed illness in the last few months.
Her death was confirmed by Kassim Afegbua, one of her younger nephews, a journalist who served as a Commissioner for information in Adams Oshiomhole administration in Edo State and is currently a member of the Tinubu’s Presidential Campaign Council.
Kassim said her aunty died yesterday morning and that her body had deposited at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) mortuary.
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The late Franca Afegbua who was born in 1942, was elected senator in 1983 on the platform of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) where she represented the then Bendel North Senatorial District.
She served in the upper chamber of the National Assembly from October to December 1983, before the Buhari military coup brought the second republic to an end on December 31, 1983.
In another report, a former governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau on Tuesday shockingly shunned the International Conference Centre (ICC) where the Senators-elect collected their certificate of return, a move that has now left political watchers wondering what went wrong.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Shekarau as the winner of February 25, 2023, senatorial election for Kano South under the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
However, the serving lawmaker was absent during the presentation of the certificate of return yesterday.
Shekarau’s spokesman, Sule Y. Sule, told reporters that his principal had already made it clear that he would not collect the certificate of return.
After the announcement of Ibrahim Shekarau as the winner of the Kano central senatorial election, the national chairman of the NNPP, Prof Rufai Alkali said Shekarau left their party but unfortunately, he was returned by INEC as senator-elect for Kano Central.