For Tolulope Akande-Sadipe, running for a second term as a member of parliament in Nigeria means putting her life on the line, says the 56-year-old politician who is running in the February 25 legislative elections in the southwest of Africa’s most populous country.
On the same day, Nigerians will also elect their next president, Muhmmadu Buhari stepping down after two terms as stipulated by the constitution, and their senators. On March 11, they will choose their governors and local assembly members.
In the last election in 2019, Ms. Akande-Sadipe’s campaign bus was destroyed and her press officers assaulted. For this election, she said she narrowly escaped an assault while campaigning against five men in her party’s primary.
In Nigeria, “electoral violence is very real, and it targets me more because I am a woman,” the MP from Oyo State told AFP. According to her, her opponents “think they can intimidate her” because she is a woman.
