A 26-year-old woman, Rukayat Motunrayo Shittu has won the Owode/Onire Constituency, Asa LGA of Kwara State in the state assembly election held on March 18, 2023.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returning officer for the exercise, Prof Akeem Olasunkanmi Ijaiya while declaring Rukayat as the winner on Sunday, March 19, 2023, said she polled 7,521 votes to defeat her closest rival, Abdullah Magaji, of the PDP who scored 6,957 votes.
Prof Ijaiya declared, “Having scored the highest number of votes and satisfied the requirements of the law, she is hereby declared the winner of the election.”
Rukayyat is going to be the youngest lawmaker in the state and arguably the youngest in the country.
Rukayyat, an online journalist, entered the race in 2022.
Reacting to the victory, she said, “I thank the people of my constituency for voting en masse for me.”
Rukayat Motunrayo Shittu hails from Manyan village, Onire District, in Asa LGA of Kwara State.
Born in 1996, she attended Baptist Primary School, Ilorin, and Government Girls Day Secondary School (GGDSS), Oko Erin, Ilorin. She proceeded to the Kwara State College of Arabic and Islamic Legal Studies, where she obtained a diploma in mass communication and Islamic studies in 2015.
In 2017, she was admitted to the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and graduated in 2022.