She was a beautician and an outstanding leader who joined politics with the agenda of transforming her community. Born on October 1943 in Kano, he was a native of Okpella \u2013 a town in Estako-east LGA of the old Bendel state, which is now divided into Edo and Delta states.<\/p>\n
The Edo-born beautician had her education in Kano, Kaduna, and Lagos states. She was said to own a hair care and massage salon in a shopping centre at Falomo in Ikoyi area of Lagos.<\/p>\n
She was a strong entrepreneur who won several beauty awards locally and internationally before the second republic. In 1977, she won an international hairstyling competition in London.<\/p>\n
She was elected the senator representing Bendel-north in October 1983 under the National Party of Nigeria in Nigeria\u2019s second republic to become Nigeria’s first female senator. <\/p>\n
Her political journey was, however, cut short as the military coup of December 1983 toppled the civilian government less than three months after she assumed office.<\/p>\n
Afegbua was introduced into politics by Joseph Tarka, a Nigerian politician from Benue state who served as a minister for transport and communications under Yakubu Gowon, former military head of state.<\/p>\n
In 1983, she started politics fully and contested the senatorial position of Bendel north under the National Party of Nigeria. She contested against John Omolu, a formidable politician and a trade unionist. <\/p>\n
Afegbua remained resolute despite the male dominance and canvassed votes through women and their organisations. She earned a slim victory in the election and defeated Omolu. She was then sworn in as the first elected female senator in Nigeria in October 1983.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26908,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[166],"writer":[],"class_list":["post-26907","biography","type-biography","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/26907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/biography"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/26907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26907"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=26907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}