She was the only one of them whose name was agreed upon through a consensus between the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC) and the Transitional Military Council (TMC), as was foreseen under the terms of the Draft Constitutional Declaration of August 2019.
[4][5] She is the only civilian member of the TSC to have been reinstated by Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan after he seized power in the 2021 military coup d'état.
[6] As such she is, along with fellow council member Aisha Musa el-Said, one of the first two women in modern Sudanese history to hold the role equivalent to a federal minister and is also the first Christian (as a member of the Coptic minority) to hold such a high political office in the country.
[4][5] The signing of the July Political Agreement and the Draft Constitutional Declaration by the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC) and the Transitional Military Council (TMC) followed half a year of sustained civil disobedience and the 3 June Khartoum massacre.
[5] In late August, Raja Nicola was nominated by the FFC and the TMC as their mutually agreed-on sixth civilian member of the Sovereignty Council.