Senator Franca Afegbua, the first female senator in Nigeria has died at 79.

According to a statement issued by the Afegbua family, the deceased passed away in the morning of Sunday, March 12, 2023, with no cause of death stated.

Born in 1943, in Okpella, a town in Etsako-east Local Government Area of the old Bendel state (now split into Edo and Delta states), the late senator Franca, having previously worked as a hairdresser in Lagos and won an international hairstyling competition in 1977, made a foray into politics teaming up with the then opposition party, and was elected into the Red Chamber in October 1983 under the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

However, the Second Republic senator had her stint at the National Assembly cut short just three months in by the military coup of December 1983 which toppled the civilian government led by Nigeria’s first democratically elected president, Shehu Shagari.