On this day in 2007, Patricia Olubunmi Foluke Etteh quit as Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives. She had held the post only from June 6 to October 30, 2007, and her exit came at the end of one of the most dramatic crises the chamber has seen.

Etteh, born in 1953, is a lawyer who also worked as a hairdresser and beauty therapist before entering politics. She was elected Speaker unanimously in June 2007, becoming the first woman to lead the House. Her election was widely welcomed as a breakthrough for women in Nigerian politics. Babangida Nguroje served as her deputy.

By September, her critics had something concrete to attack. She faced a committee of lawmakers over claims that she had approved spending of 628 million naira, roughly 5 million US dollars, on renovating her official residence and her deputy’s, and on buying 12 official cars. The affair became known as the N628 million contract scandal. A group of lawmakers pushed it hard inside the chamber, and tempers boiled over. The BBC reported a brawl among MPs over the speakership in September. The pressure also came from outside parliament. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka publicly told her to resign, but she held on for weeks, and she reportedly had the backing of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The end came on Tuesday, October 30. Her opponents had defeated her supporters in a vote to pick a temporary presiding officer to consider the committee’s report. Her colleagues told her to resign or face impeachment.

Female lawmakers knelt before her, urging her to step down, and she handed her resignation letter to the acting Clerk at 4:20 p.m. Her deputy resigned as well, and lawmakers chose Terngu Tsegba, one of her opponents, as acting Speaker. Dimeji Bankole succeeded her as Speaker on November 1.

The story did not end neatly. The House later recorded that there was no record of proceedings in which Etteh had been indicted. Some commentators argued the allegations were a pretext for removing her. Her name came up again in 2022, when the EFCC arrested her over an alleged 130 million naira suspicious payment from a contractor, a separate matter from the 2007 scandal.