PROFILE: Jamila Ibrahim, Olawande… here are Tinubu’s nominees for youth ministry

On Sunday, President Bola Tinubu nominated Jamila Bio Ibrahim and Ayodele Olawande as the minister of youth and minister of state for youth, respectively. 

The position of minister of youth became vacant after the president redeployed Abubakar Momoh to the ministry of Niger Delta development.

The two nominees, if confirmed by the senate, will be among the youngest ministers in the cabinet of President Tinubu.

Here are a few things to know about them.

JAMILA BIO IBRAHIM 

Jamila Jummai Bio Ibrahim was born on February 7, 1986. Her father is Ibrahim Isa Bio, a former minister of Nigeria, who hailed from Baruten LGA, Kwara state. He was appointed minister of transportation by the late Umar Musa Yar’Adu’a in 2008 before he was reassigned to the ministry of sports following a cabinet reshuffle.

Jamila Ibrahim attended NEPA Staff School in New-Busse, Borgu LGA, Niger state, for her primary education. She proceeded to Federal Government Girls’ College, Bwari, Abuja where she had her secondary education, and graduated in 2002.

She obtained a bachelor of medicine, and bachelor of surgery (M.B.B.S) from the University of Ilorin in 2010, and moved to the University of Washington for a six-month course on health management and leadership.

After her brief study stint in the US in 2017, Jamila Ibrahim established a non-governmental organisation (NGO) named Yon Seno Foundation in November of that same year. She was then named a member of the think-tank of the national policy summit in 2017.

She volunteered on the presidential committee on the north-east initiative (PCNI) established by former President Muhammadu Buhari to serve as the primary national strategy, coordination and advisory body for all humanitarian interventions, and transformational and developmental efforts in the region.

According to her resume, she worked with the PCNI for two years and “carried out an assessment of the major health facilities in Maiduguri, to ascertain the level of preparedness and identify the gaps in terms of manpower and mass casualty response”.

Shortly, she was named the secretary of the subcommittee on health, women’s affairs, population and environment of the transition committee of AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq, governor of Kwara, in 2019.

After completing her assignment in AbdulRasaq’s transition committee,  she was appointed the senior special assistant to the governor on sustainable development goals (SDGs) a year later. She became Kwara’s focal person for both the National Human Capital Development Programme and the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD).

She was also the secretary of the Kwara state “tractorisation” programme and was thereafter named the national vice president of the All Progressives Congress Young Women Forum (APC-PYWF) in June 2021.

Ahead of the 2023 elections, she was appointed a member of the APC presidential campaign committee on sustainable development.

Jamila Ibrahim is an avid fan of Polo and a non-executive director of the Emirates Equestrian Club, Ilorin.

AYODELE OLAWANDE 

Olawande is a seasoned grassroots political youth leader who worked in the office of Ife Adebayo, special assistant on innovation to the former vice-president Yemi Osinbajo.

He attended Christ School, Ado Ekiti, Ekiti state, for his secondary school education before proceeding to Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, for higher education. Olawande then studied at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo state.

He tried his hands in business ventures for a while before making a foray into politics. He was the founder of the Action Youth Movement (AYM) and the ICT director for Ondo APC.

Olawande is the coordinator of the All Progressive Youth Forum (APYF) in Ondo and also a general administrator at The Way Project.