Posted by From Kelvin Ebiri, Port Harcourt on
RIVERS State House of Assembly member, Antonia Membere, is dead....
RIVERS State House of Assembly member, Antonia Membere, is dead.
The Deputy Speaker of the House, Tonye Harry, said Membere died in a South African hospital on Monday. The House adjourned sitting till next Monday in honour of Membere.
A source, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed to The Guardian that the late lawmaker was diagnosed with arthritis at an undisclosed hospital in Nigeria. Due to the deterioration of her health, she had to be flown to South Africa where it was alleged diagnosis revealed she had leukemia.
Membere was elected into the Rivers State House of Assembly in 2003 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). She retired as the Principal of Abonnema Girls' Secondary School, Abonnema, to join politics. She was born on February 19, 1955 and was a doctoral student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka before her death.
Due to her death, the House could not commence deliberations on the reports of two separate judicial panels it had set up to thoroughly investigate allegations of impropriety leveled against two council chairmen in the state.