Former Somali deputy prime minister and foreign minister Fawzia Yusuf H Adam said on Tuesday that she was a candidate to chair the African Union Commission.
Fawzia is seeking to succeed former Chadian foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat who has led the 54-nation body since 2017.
“I am happy to announce that I am Somalia’s candidate in the race for the African Union chairmanship,” she said on her X account.
“I would like to thank President Hassan Mohamud and the the federal government of Somalia for their full support and encouragement.”
Fawzia is currently a member of the Somali federal parliament.
She became Somalia’s first female foreign minister and deputy prime minister in 2012.
Veteran Kenyan politician and former prime minister Raila Odinga has also expressed interest in the chairmanship of the African Union Commission.
Odinga spoke when he met former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Thursday, February 15.
Mahamat, also a former Chadian prime minister, was first elected chairman of the African Union Commission in 2017.
He was re-elected in 2021 for another four-year term that will end in 2024.
Odinga, 79, was the prime minister of Kenya from 2008 to 2013.
