Nigerian civil engineer and politician, Ireti Kingibe was born on June 2nd, 1954. She is Ajoke Muhammed’s younger sister. Ajoke Muhammed is the wife of Murtala Muhammed, a former president of state of Nigeria.
After beginning her education at Emotan Preparatory School, Kingibe continued her secondary schooling at Queen’s College Lagos and Washington Irving High School. She earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Between 1981 and 1982, she spent her obligatory year of service (NYSC) back in Nigeria. She was assigned to serve at the Nigerian Air Force installation in Ikeja, Lagos, as a project supervisor.
In 1978 and 1979, Kinigibe worked for Bradley Precast Concrete Inc. as a quality control engineer to launch her professional career. Between 1979 to 1991, she worked as an engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Design Division.
As the National Chairman’s Adviser for the now-defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), Kingibe’s political career officially began in 1990.
She ran for the All Nigeria People’s party in the FCT senatorial primary in 2003. In 2006, she switched parties to the People’s Democratic Party. She did, however, subsequently join the APC in 2014. She entered the 2015 election as an APC candidate for a senate seat but later withdrew.
Kingibe became a member of the Labour Party in 2022, ran as its FCT senatorial candidate in the Nigerian elections of 2023, and won. Prior to the elections, she promised to donate her base salary to a special fund to address the lack of infrastructure in the rural areas of the nation’s capital if she were to win.
On August 8, 2023, she was appointed to lead the Senate Committee on Women’s Affairs for the 10th Senate.
