By Lillian Okenwa
Amidst the International Women’s Month celebrations, Nigerian women have been thrown into mourning with the passing of the country’s first female senator, Franca Afegbua.
A statement from the Afegbua family disclosed that she died on Sunday.
The statement reads: “The Afegbua family of Edo state has confirmed the demise of the first woman senator in Nigeria, Senator Franca Afegbua, whose sad event occurred this morning, Sunday, March 12, 2023.
“She combined beauty and brain during her service to Nigeria. Funeral details will be announced by the family soon.”
Afegbua who was elected the senator representing Bendel-north in October 1983 under the National Party of Nigeria in Nigeria’s second republic died at 79.
A source of pride to women for shattering the glass ceiling at a time when women’s inclusion in politics was largely unrecognized in Nigeria, Afegbua in 1983 shocked the political world when she was elected Senator of the Federal Republic under the platform of the National Party of Nigeria to represent Bendel North.
Ever since the floodgate of women venturing into partisan politics was thrown open.
Today, women over the world are rising up and demanding seats at the table but in the political space, the clamour is yet to bear much fruit in Nigeria. Public affairs analysts insist that despite calls for improvement in women’s participation in public life across the world, Nigeria appears to be moving in the wrong direction.
This was demonstrated when the Federal Government went on appeal to challenge a judgement of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which ordered the enforcement of the National Gender Policy by allotting 35 percent of appointments in the public sector to women.
In July last year the federal government through the Attorney General of the Federation filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division to challenge the verdict.
It has been reported that from 1999 till date, only 157 women have been elected into the 469-member National Assembly (38 senators and 119 members of the House of Representatives), compared to 2,657 men (616 senators, 2,041 reps) during the same period.
The results of the 25 February presidential and National Assembly elections further revealed Nigeria’s failure to implement several treaties and statutes it signed, which are aimed at ensuring women’s involvement in politics.
Of the 92 women who contested for the Senate in the February elections, only three won, while out of the 286 that contested for seats in the House of Representatives, only 15 have been declared winners.
Franca Afegbua, born 20 October 1943 at Okpella, Edo State was a Nigerian beautician and politician. She completed her post-secondary education in Sofia, Bulgaria but prior to the beginning of the second republic, she worked as a hairdresser in Lagos serving high-income clients.
Afegbua had a close relationship with Joseph Tarka, who introduced her to his party, NPN. In 1983, when she announced her intention to run for a senatorial seat in Bendel, few believed that she could win.
Despite stiff opposition from her party, state governor, and others who had more respect for men in the community, Afegbua, who had won an international hairstyling competition in 1977, strategized that wooing more women to vote could give her a victory.
Her victory in the hairstyling competition had made her name popular within her Etsako community and so she targeted women voters. As her campaign gained steam it was too late to curb. She earned a slim victory in the August election, defeating John Umolu.
