A Nigerian lawyer has been appointed Canada’s new minister of justice and solicitor general for the province of Alberta.
After graduating University of Lagos in Nigeria in 2001, called to the bar in 2003 and moving to Canada in 2003, 15 years later Kaycee Madu is now Minister of Justice in Canada.
He is the first black man to occupy a ministerial post at that level in Canadian history.
Alberta’s premier described the appointment as making a powerful statement at a time of increasing sensitivity to racial prejudice.
Kaycee Madu says the province of Alberta made this opportunity to be in the history books, possible.
‘I’ve always said my story could only have been possible in my province of Alberta… I love my home country, Nigeria, but there is no question that I look forward to a day when my fellow countrymen and women in that country can achieve their God-given potential, regardless of the part of the country they come from and regardless of who their parents are.’
‘I have watched the good will messages poor from around the world, fellow Nigerians have expressed in thousands their support for this historical appointment to the office of the Minister of Justice and solicitor general for the first time in Canadian history,’ Madu added.