A Nigerian woman, Esther Agbaje has been elected into the Minnesota House of Representatives in Tuesday’s United States general elections.
Agbaje will be representing District 59B in the 134-member House on the platform of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the US Democratic Party.
She won by a landslide polling 17,396 votes or 74.7 percent of the total ballots cast to defeat her closest rival, Alan Shilepsky of the Republican Party who polled 4,128 votes, representing 17.7 percent of the total.
Elections to the lower chamber of the state legislature hold every two years, and there are no term limits for the lawmakers.
The 35-year-old Nigerian woman graduated from George Washington University, Washington, D.C., with a degree in political science, holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania and also a law degree from Harvard University.
Agbaje who once served at the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Affairs Officer, charged with managing the rule of law projects in the Middle East, currently works as an attorney in Minneapolis with a focus on general civil litigation and medical malpractice.
Her priorities as a lawmaker include affordable housing, environmental justice, police reform, public safety, and racial equality.
