Like Owolewa, Agbaje also wins seat in US Congress

Nigerian-American, Esther Agbaje has emerged victorious in the just concluded 2020 US election paving her way into the US House of Representatives.

Agbaje won a legislative seat in Minnesota House of Representatives, making her the first Nigerian-American in the Minnesota legislature.

The 35-year-old daughter of an Episcopal priest and a librarian, both Nigerian immigrants, defeated her closest rival, Alan Shilepsky, by a landslide.

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After votes were counted, Agbaje scored a total of 17,396 votes, which represents 74.6 per cent of the total votes cast, while her opponent Shilepsky, a nominee for the Republican Party, scored 4,128 votes, representing 17.7 per cent of the total votes cast.

The legal practitioner who has a degree from Harvard University, a Master’s from the University of Pennsylvania, and has served in the U.S. Department of State, among others, is also one of four progressive greenhorns who defeated established Democratic legislators in the primary.

This came after another Nigerian-born pharmacist, Oye Owolewa, was on Tuesday elected as a shadow member of the United States House of Representatives from the District of Columbia.

Owolewa polled 164,026 votes, which represented 81.59 percent of the total votes to defeat Joyce Robinson-Paul and Sohaer Syed in that election.

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