Kingibe Ireti Heebah
Kingibe Ireti Heebah is a Nigerian politician from Abuja. They have contested 1 election (1 win) across 1 party. Most recent: 2023 Nigerian Senate Elections as Labour Party (LP) candidate.
Biography
Ireti Heebah Kingibe (born 2 June 1954) is a Nigerian civil engineer and politician. She was elected member of the Senate representing the FCT in the 2023 Nigerian Senate elections under the Labour Party.
Her education started at Emotan Preparatory School in 1966, after which she attended Queen's College Lagos from 1966 to 1967 and Washington Irving High School from 1970 to 1973 for her secondary school education. She bagged a degree in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota between 1975 and 1980.
Between 1978 and 1979, Kingibe worked as a quality control engineer with Bradley Precast Concrete Inc. She then moved on to work as an engineer with the Minnesota Department of Transportation Design unit from 1979 to 1991.
She returned to Nigeria for her mandatory one-year service year between 1981 and 1982, where she was posted as a project supervisor with the Nigerian Air Force base in Ikeja, Lagos.
In 1982, she worked as a planning engineer with the New Nigeria Construction Company in Kaduna. In 1985, she left New Nigeria Construction Company to work as a consultant for Belsam Limited.
Kingibe became the regional engineer for Lodigiani Nigeria Limited in Lagos between 1990 and 1994. She currently works as a senior partner with Kelnic Associates, Abuja.
Her political career began in 1990 with her appointment as adviser to the national chairman of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP). In 2003, she was the FCT senatorial candidate for the All Nigeria Peoples Party.
She defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2006, but in 2014 joined the All Progressive Congress (APC) due to political challenges within PDP. In 2015, she ran for the senatorial seat under APC but later withdrew.
In 2022, she joined the Labour Party, became its FCT senatorial candidate, and won the 2023 Nigerian Senate election. Before the elections, she pledged her basic salary to a special fund to address infrastructural deficits in rural communities within Abuja.
She was named the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs in the 10th Senate on 8 August 2023. On 28 February 2023, INEC declared her the winner of the FCT senatorial election, defeating three-term Senator Philip Aduda. She contested against opposition parties’ claims of electoral rigging, alleging bribery of electoral officers and an attack on the Gwarinpa collation center.
Political Career
Party Positions
Policy positions from the Labour Party (LP) party manifesto.
Agriculture
Will optimize agricultural value chains across all 36 states with targeted investments, addressing impediments like banditry, kidnapping, and desertification to enhance food security and advance agro-based industrialization.
Governance & Reform
Will restructure the Nigerian federation through legal and institutional reforms to strengthen federalism by moving agreed items from the exclusive list of the Federal government to the concurrent list, ensuring effective public action for growth and sustainable livelihood.
Security & Defense
Will implement key recommendations from previous police and security sector reform reports, including a three-level policing structure (local, state, federal) with detailed guidelines to curb abuses.
Reliefs and scholarships
Will resolve the national minimum wage problem by replacing the extant salary structure with an hourly productivity-based national minimum wage, ensuring binding application across all sectors.
Economy & Trade
Will reform the transport system, including logistics, ports, customs, and other agencies, to create an integrated transport system promoting inter-connectivity among ports, roads, rail, and inland waterways to reduce trade costs and enhance competitiveness.
Enterprise grant support
Will devise programs to reskill youths, create mandatory national certification for blue-collar artisans, strengthen STEM tertiary schools, and establish a venture capital-like fund for young entrepreneurs.
Environment & Climate
Will establish a Green Army to tap into $3 trillion in international climate finance for green growth, employment, and transition to a green economy.
Anti-corruption
Will establish the Office of Special Counsel to investigate and prosecute executive abuses of power and corruption, with constitutional amendments to exempt its prosecutions from the Nolle Prosequi power of the Attorney General.
Energy
Launch a solar power revolution in Northern Nigeria, ensuring uninterrupted power supply in cities and industrial parks by the end of 2024 through re-engagement of 14 Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and resolving financial impediments to reach $2.5 billion in PPAs for 1,125 MW of solar capacity.
Technology & Digital
Support private sector-led fiber-optic backbone projects connecting tertiary institutions and state capitals to enable free broadband access for digital transformation.
Infrastructure
Creation of national multi-utility transport tunnels (MUT) to integrate masterplans for gas, road, railway, urban mass transit, telecommunications, water, sewage, and electricity for cost efficiency and streamlined infrastructure development.
Education
Will implement a Marshall Plan-style education reform program with compulsory technical and vocational skills, entrepreneurship, and digital training from primary to secondary level, with strategic partnerships for incubators and seed funding.
Healthcare
Expand health insurance coverage to 133 million poorest Nigerians (including pregnant women, children, the elderly, and disabled) through strengthened NHIS with private sector involvement, ensuring accessibility and affordability.
Foreign Policy
Engage in Afro-centric diplomacy to protect Nigerian citizens abroad and advance economic interests through trade, investment, and diplomatic leverage.
Other Candidates in Abuja
Sources
Bio, Photo, State of Origin: Wikipedia ↗
Date of Birth: Wikidata ↗