Kayode Fayemi
Encyclopedia
Kayode Fayemi, is the current Governor of Ekiti State and a native of Isan-Ekiti in Oye Local Government of Ekiti State
, Nigeria.
and received degrees in History
, Politics
and International Relations
from the Universities of Lagos
and Ife
in Nigeria
and his Doctorate
in War Studies from the prestigious King's College
, University of London
, England
, specializing in civil-military relations. His research and policy interests include: Democratisation, Constitutionalism, Security Sector Governance, and Regionalism in the Global Context.
and training institution dedicated to the study and promotion of democratic development, peace-building and human security in Africa.
Prior to his establishment of the Centre, he worked as a lecturer, journalist
, researcher and Strategy Development adviser in Nigeria and the United Kingdom
. He was Strategy Development Adviser at London’s City Challenge; research fellow at the African Research & Information Bureau in London, UK, reporter with the newspapers, The Guardian
and City Tempo, editor of the political monthly, Nigeria-Now, management consultant at Development and Management Consultants and lecturer at the Police
College in Sokoto
, Nigeria. As a prominent leader of the Nigerian opposition to military
rule in exile, he was responsible for the founding and management of the opposition radios – Radio Freedom, Radio Democracy International & Radio Kudirat and played a central role in the opposition’s diplomatic engagements in exile
. An account of the process and roles played in the setting up of Radio Kudirat may be found in Fayemi's book Out Of The Shadows.
Amongst his numerous academic and public policy engagements at home and abroad, Kayode Fayemi has lectured in Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia. He has also served as an adviser on transitional justice
, regional integration, constitutionalism, security sector reform and civil-military relations issues to various governments, inter-governmental institutions and development agencies. He was the main technical adviser to Nigeria’s Human Rights
Violations Investigation Commission (Oputa Panel), which investigated past abuses and currently serves on the Presidential Implementation Committees on Security Sector Reform, NEPAD and the Millennium
Development Goals. He was technical expert to ECOWAS on small arms and light weapons and United Nations
Economic Commission of Africa on governance issues. He is also a member, Africa Policy Advisory Panel of the British Government. At other times he has served as a consultant to the OECD on Security Sector Reform and chaired the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative’s Committee of Experts on developing guiding principles and mechanisms of constitution
making in Commonwealth
Africa.
Kayode Fayemi is a Fellow
of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ibadan
, Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at the African Centre for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., USA. He was also a Visiting Professor
in the African Studies Programme at Northwestern University
, Evanston, USA in 2004. Dr Fayemi serves on numerous Boards including the Governing Board of the Open Society Justice Institute, Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, African Security Sector Network, and on the Advisory Board of the Global Facilitation Network on Security Sector Reform and on the Management Culture
Board of the ECOWAS Secretariat.
The Action Congress of Nigeria party formed as an amalgamation of the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) by the loyalists of the vice president Abubakar Atiku, the faction of the AD being led by Chief Adebisi Akande
and believed to be loyal to Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu, the Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), as well as some smaller political parties (http://www.tribune.com.ng/23082006/news/news9.html)
In an interview with the Daily Independent in 2005, Mr Fayemi made poverty, education and healthcare central to his manifesto. The implementation of which he asserts will be consultative, including being open to ideas from the diaspora.
His campaign for governorship of Ekiti State was the subject of an article in the New York Times. While complimentary, the article highlighted the difficulty in navigating the moral high ground within an electoral process long steeped in corruption.
After three and a half years fighting through the legal system on October 15 2010 the appeal court sitting in Kwara state declared him the duly elected Governor of Ekiti State.
Ekiti State
Ekiti State is a state in southwest Nigeria, created on October 1, 1996 alongside five other new states by military dictator General Sani Abacha...
, Nigeria.
Education
He attended Christ’s School, Ado EkitiAdo Ekiti
Ado Ekiti is a city in southwest Nigeria, in the state of Ekiti. It is also known as Ado. The population in 2004 was 446,749. The people of Ado Ekiti are mainly of the Yoruba ethnic group...
and received degrees in History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, Politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and International Relations
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
from the Universities of Lagos
University of Lagos
The University of Lagos - popularly known as Unilag - is a federal government university with a main campus located at Akoka, Yaba and a college of medicine located at Idi-Araba, all in Lagos, Lagos State, southern Nigeria...
and Ife
Obafemi Awolowo University
Obafemi Awolowo University is a government-owned and -operated Nigerian university. The university is in the ancient city of Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria...
in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
and his Doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in War Studies from the prestigious King's College
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, specializing in civil-military relations. His research and policy interests include: Democratisation, Constitutionalism, Security Sector Governance, and Regionalism in the Global Context.
Academic and political initiatives
Kayode Fayemi is a former Director of the Centre for Democracy & Development, a researchResearch
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
and training institution dedicated to the study and promotion of democratic development, peace-building and human security in Africa.
Prior to his establishment of the Centre, he worked as a lecturer, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, researcher and Strategy Development adviser in Nigeria and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. He was Strategy Development Adviser at London’s City Challenge; research fellow at the African Research & Information Bureau in London, UK, reporter with the newspapers, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and City Tempo, editor of the political monthly, Nigeria-Now, management consultant at Development and Management Consultants and lecturer at the Police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
College in Sokoto
Sokoto
Sokoto is a city located in the extreme northwest of Nigeria, near to the confluence of the Sokoto River and the Rima River. As of 2006 it has a population of 427,760...
, Nigeria. As a prominent leader of the Nigerian opposition to military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
rule in exile, he was responsible for the founding and management of the opposition radios – Radio Freedom, Radio Democracy International & Radio Kudirat and played a central role in the opposition’s diplomatic engagements in exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
. An account of the process and roles played in the setting up of Radio Kudirat may be found in Fayemi's book Out Of The Shadows.
Amongst his numerous academic and public policy engagements at home and abroad, Kayode Fayemi has lectured in Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia. He has also served as an adviser on transitional justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
, regional integration, constitutionalism, security sector reform and civil-military relations issues to various governments, inter-governmental institutions and development agencies. He was the main technical adviser to Nigeria’s Human Rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
Violations Investigation Commission (Oputa Panel), which investigated past abuses and currently serves on the Presidential Implementation Committees on Security Sector Reform, NEPAD and the Millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
Development Goals. He was technical expert to ECOWAS on small arms and light weapons and United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Economic Commission of Africa on governance issues. He is also a member, Africa Policy Advisory Panel of the British Government. At other times he has served as a consultant to the OECD on Security Sector Reform and chaired the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative’s Committee of Experts on developing guiding principles and mechanisms of constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
making in Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
Africa.
Kayode Fayemi is a Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ibadan
University of Ibadan
The University of Ibadan is the oldest Nigerian university, and is located five miles from the centre of the major city of Ibadan in Western Nigeria...
, Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at the African Centre for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., USA. He was also a Visiting Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
in the African Studies Programme at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, Evanston, USA in 2004. Dr Fayemi serves on numerous Boards including the Governing Board of the Open Society Justice Institute, Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, African Security Sector Network, and on the Advisory Board of the Global Facilitation Network on Security Sector Reform and on the Management Culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
Board of the ECOWAS Secretariat.
Writings
He has written extensively on governance and democratisation, civil-military relations and security sector issues in Africa. Among his recent books are: Mercenaries: The African Security Dilemma - edited by Abdel-Fatau Musah (Pluto Press, 2000); Deepening the Culture of Constitutionalism: The Role of Regional Institutions in Constitutional Development in Africa (CDD, 2003), Security Sector Governance in Africa: A Handbook (edited with Nicole Ball, CDD, 2004) and Out of the Shadows: Exile and the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Nigeria (CDD, 2005).Campaign for Ekiti State Governor
Kayode Fayemi ran for the Ekiti state governorship in the 2007 elections on the platform of the Action Congress partyThe Action Congress of Nigeria party formed as an amalgamation of the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) by the loyalists of the vice president Abubakar Atiku, the faction of the AD being led by Chief Adebisi Akande
Adebisi Akande
Abdukareem Adebisi Bamidele Akande was a governor of Osun State, Nigeria from 1999-2003, as a member of the Alliance for Democracy party, and is Chairman of the Action Congress party.-Background:...
and believed to be loyal to Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu, the Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), as well as some smaller political parties (http://www.tribune.com.ng/23082006/news/news9.html)
In an interview with the Daily Independent in 2005, Mr Fayemi made poverty, education and healthcare central to his manifesto. The implementation of which he asserts will be consultative, including being open to ideas from the diaspora.
His campaign for governorship of Ekiti State was the subject of an article in the New York Times. While complimentary, the article highlighted the difficulty in navigating the moral high ground within an electoral process long steeped in corruption.
After three and a half years fighting through the legal system on October 15 2010 the appeal court sitting in Kwara state declared him the duly elected Governor of Ekiti State.
Professional History
- 2010–Date — Governor, Ekiti State
- 1997–2006 — Director, Centre for DemocracyDemocracyDemocracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
& Development - 1995–1997 — Secretary General, Media Empowerment for Africa (The RadioRadioRadio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
Foundation) - 1993–1995 — Strategy Development Adviser, Deptford City Challenge, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK - 1991–1993 — Research Officer, African Research and Information Bureau, London, UK.
- 1992–1992 — Tutorial FellowFellowA fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
, War Studies Department, King's College, London, UK - 1987–1989 — ResearchResearchResearch can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
Officer, Development & Management Consultants, Ikeja. Lagos-Nigeria. - 1985–1986 — LectureLecturethumb|A lecture on [[linear algebra]] at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]]A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history,...
r, Nigeria-PolicePoliceThe police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
Training College, SokotoSokotoSokoto is a city located in the extreme northwest of Nigeria, near to the confluence of the Sokoto River and the Rima River. As of 2006 it has a population of 427,760...
– Nigeria
External links
- Fayemi, Kayode. A Manifesto for Ekiti Transformation
- Fayemi, Kayode. Security Challenges