Gbemisola Ruqayyah Saraki, a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) senator, representing Kwara central senatorial zone, is the daughter of Olushola Saraki, a second republic Senate leader and an elder statesman in Kwara politics. She is also a younger sister to the current governor of Kwara State and chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Bukola Saraki.

Ms.Gbemisola Saraki is a graduate of University of Sussex and had her high school education at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, both in England. She is divorced with children.

Ms. Gbemisola Saraki came onto the political limelight on the back of her father’s patronage in 1999, when she was elected as a member of the Federal House of Representatives, where she spent a term. For the 2003 election, she contested for and won the Senate seat for Kwara central, where she had remained since then.

While in the House of Representatives, she was in the House Committees on Aviation; Foreign; Habitat; Legislative Budget and Research Office; Navy; Privatization; Special Duties; and Transport. She is currently Senate Committee chairman on Marine Transport and also serves as a member in the Senate Committees on Commerce, Rules and Business, Police Affairs, Intergovernmental Affairs, and Aviation.

Ms. Saraki is an average senator. She has sponsored six bills in this session of the Senate, but rarely attends plenary. She is also a member of the ECOWAS Parliament, and nurses an ambition to take over the governance of Kwara State from her elder brother.

Gbemisola Saraki has launched an exploratory team to promote her ambition to become the governorship candidate of the PDP in Kwara State in the 2011 elections.