At the federal level, Oye Owolewa, whose father is from Kwara State and mother from Oyo State, has been elected as a shadow (non-voting) Representative out of the District of Columbia. The 30-year-old is the first Nigerian congressman in the country’s history.
This was disclosed by ABC 7 News via its Twitter handle yesterday. It tweeted, “Democrat Oye Owolewa will be elected as a shadow U.S. Representative out of the District of Columbia.”
Oye had 82.65% of the votes, which represents 135,234 votes against Joyce Robinson-Paul, who had 15,541 votes, and Sohaer Syed with 12,846 votes.
Also, Esther Agbaje won her election into the Minnesota House of Representatives. The 35-year-old woman, who contested on the platform of the Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party (DFL), pulled a total of 17,396 votes, which represents 74.7% of the total ballots cast, defeating her closets opponent Alan Shilepsky. Shilepsky garnered 4,126 votes, which represents 17.7% of the total votes cast.
Agbaje will represent District 59B in the 134-member House on the platform of DFL, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. Esther is presently an attorney in Minneapolis. She had served as a foreign affairs officer with the US Department of State.