Newly elected Senator Toni Iwobi arrives at an event at Palazzo delle Stelline, in Milan, Italy, March 9, 2018. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved.In the recent elections held in Italy on March 4, that saw the surge of populist, Eurosceptic parties, one of the features that struck both public opinion and the media has been the election of the Nigerian-born Senator Anthony (Tony) Chike Iwobi.
Senator Iwobi is not only the first Senator of African origin to have been elected in Italy, but also the first Sub-Saharan African to have been elected in Italy representing a far-right party, in this case la Lega (The League), formerly Lega Nord (Northern League), headed by Matteo Salvini. Before Senator Iwobi, the centre-right coalition had elected one other parliamentarian of African origin, but in the Chamber of Deputies: the Moroccan-born journalist Souad Sbai, elected to the Berlusconi-headed Popolo delle Liberta in 2008.
Senator Iwobi, 62, a Nigerian IT entrepreneur, married to an Italian woman, has spent 38 years in Italy and opened his business in Spirano (Province of Bergamo, in the Region of Lombardy), one of the strongholds of the League, where he also became a town councillor for the former Lega Nord in 1995. In the Italian Senate, Iwobi will represent a League that reported a remarkable 17.3% vote in the latest elections, heading the centre-right coalition.
