Wife Wins Her Late Husband’s Parliament Seat in Plateau

The late lawmaker and his wife

The wife of the late Majority Leader of Plateau House of Assembly, Gyang Fulani, has been elected on Saturday to replace her husband on the Barkin Ladi State constituency seat. The seat had become vacant following the tragic death of Fulani alongside Sen. Gyang Dantong, on July 8 in a stampede when gunmen attacked mourners at Maseh, a village in the Bachit District of Riyom Local Government Area.
Kaneng, the wife, had contested the by-elections on Saturday on the platform of PDP. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Kaneng polled 33,549 votes to beat Bulus Bot of DPP, who scored 6,718 votes and Ezekiel Gwom of ACN, who got 4,267 votes.
Meanwhile, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Plateau, Mr Habu Zarma, in an address, appealed to the winner to be magnanimous in victory and carry others along. He attributed the peace that prevailed during the elections to “the hand of God at work in Plateau”.
This case is quite similar to another in faraway Uganda where the daughter of a deceased member of parliament contested and won her father’s seat to become, perhaps, the youngest female Member of Parliament in the history of Africa at the age of 19.