A 62-year-old Nigerian, Tony Iwobi, has been elected the first black senator in the history of Italy.
The emergence of the Nigerian, who belongs to the Anti-Immigration League, was announced on Tuesday.
Iwobi, of Spirano in Lombardy, announced “with great emotion” on his Facebook page that he had been elected to the Senate in Italy’s general elections.
“After more than 25 years of fighting as part of the League’s big family, I’m about to start another great adventure,” Iwobi wrote, going on to thank leader Matteo Salvini and his other fellow party members.
Iwobi was born in Nigeria.
He went to Italy on a student visa some 40 years ago.
He married an Italian and started his own IT company.
Before running for the Senate, he represented the League as a municipal councillor in Spirano back in the 1990s, and more recently headed Salvini’s national committee on immigration.
