To many people her surname would ring a bell, her father James Ibori is among Nigeria’s first set of governor’s after military transition to civilian rule in 1999.
The 42 years old Hon. Erhiatake Ibori is an Entrepreneur, Politician and Philanthropist from Urhobo, Delta State, South South, Nigeria. The United Kingdom trained Business and Information Systems graduate dedicated the early years of her life to community development through her various initiatives. Her remarkable passion and commitme to human capital development has consolidated her father’s political landmarks.
As a legislator, her focus areas are on budgeting and promoting innovative ways of providing primary health care to citizens. On these pillars, she has devoted her time and resources to achieve notable success stories.
Before venturing into politics, she successfully ran profit-driven and social enterprises. In her quest for a better living standard for the people of her community, she focused herself on a number of key areas, such as changing the orientation of her people towards voluntarism, promotion of community involvement and provision of basic health care etc.
In 2011, she started Starlite Hopes Initiative (S.H.I), a charitable organization committed to helping the less privileged, the physically challenged and the aged in Ethiope West, Delta State with 60 volunteer Medical and non-Medical personnel. Today SHI has over 300 members who volunteer to build our country through giving of their skills and time.
.SHI has gone on to establish 3 mobile free clinics in Ugbenu, Jesse and Ogharefe in Delta State. The Ugbenu clinic is a women’s clinic that has ultra sound machines and laboratories and has delivered over 200 babies. The S.H.I. Mobile Free Clinics are fully equipped with laboratories and were created to serve members of communities that have problems accessing health care services due to physical, economical, linguistic, age and religious barriers. We have treated over 15,000 people from both Edo and Delta States.
Erhiatake championed the course for youth empowerment during the recent flood disaster in Delta State. She also set up skill acquisition centres to train victims of flood disasters in different vocations and she also delivered health care services to the victims and distributed relief materials as well.
She founded Rirafield Farm Foods Ltd., Nigeria facilitates trade through the processing and packaging of food for export to UK, US and Canada. The farm has the capacity to house up to a maximum of 100,000 birds and the Aqua Culture section has about 30,000 catfish. The farm was setup with the aim to create more jobs to the less privileged members of her community.
Her experience as a law maker began at the Delta State House of Assembly from 2015 to 2023 where also Chaired the Committee on Finance and Appropriation.
Hon. Erhiatake who got the ticket to run for federal house of representatives under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the Ethiope Federal Constituency. She emerged winner in the 2023 general elections after scoring 20,814 votes against her closest rival, Halims Agoda of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who got 15,172 votes.
She is well known as a philanthropist committed to the development of the Niger Delta, which is the reason for her emergence as the Chairman, House Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Hon. Erhiatake holds certifications in Certificate Personal Effectiveness, Influencing and Communicating for Impact Course between 2022 – 2022 from SOAS University of London.
Certificate in Advanced Leadership Programme 2021 from Moller Institute and so many others.
According to Independent Newspaper, a Nigerian national daily, she is a titan who will always be superwoman on the battlefield, simply because she is coming from a big antecedent and cannot be equated with others in her ilk.
by Esther Nwgu, Aug-Oct 2023.