My Family Lineage
OpenLife Nigeria reports that Femi Fani-Kayode, 65, a Nigerian politician, author and lawyer has availed the public his family lineage including the schools and titles his forefathers held.
The former Minister of Aviation made the disclosure on his Facebook Wall
This is my great grandfather, Rev. Emmanuel Adebiyi Kayode (M.A. Durham). He studied theology at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone (which at that time was a campus of Durham University in the UK) graduated in 1892 & became an Anglican priest.
He brought Christianity to Ile-Ife our ancestral home, built & Pastored the first Church there & was amongst those that fought & put a stop to the practice of human sacrifice in the community.
He was also posted to the then Ondo Province & later Ijebu Province where he pastored the Church & preached the gospel for a total of 40 years. He was a great & fearless soldier of Christ. His first son, Victor Adedapo Kayode, was my grandfather. He studied law at Selwyn College, Cambridge University & was called to the British Bar in 1922.
He practised criminal law in the then Lagos Colony & was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a Magistrate. His first grandson, Chief Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode KC, SAN, CON, the Balogun of Ife, was my father. He studied law at Downing College, Cambridge University & was called to the British Bar in 1943.
He practised criminal & constitutional law in Nigeria & set up the first indigenous law firm in Nigeria called ‘Thomas, Williams and Kayode’ with Chief Bode Thomas and Chief Rotimi Williams. He was the third Nigerian to be appointed as Kings Counsel, the third Nigerian to be appointed as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the Deputy Premier of the old Western Region whilst Chief S.L. Akintola was Premier & the Regional Minister of Local Government & Chieftaincy Affairs in the First Republic. Rev. Emmanuel was the Patriach of our family.
I honor his memory today & I thank God for being part of his proud & distinguished lineage & noble heritage. Many in our country cannot even trace their lineage which is very sad. We all came from someone & somewhere, we must never forget who that someone & somewhere is & we must ensure that our children & grandchildren never forget either.
Never forget who & what you are because no-one can take that from you. Thanks to ‘AI’ he has literally been brought back to life in the second picture. Glory be to God!
Born in Lagos on October 16, 1960, Femi Fani-Kayode became the Special Assistant on Public Affairs to Olusegun Obasanjo from July 2003 to June 2006. He was appointed the Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 22 June to 7 November 2006, and the Minister of Aviation from 7 November 2006 to 29 May 2007.
Early life and education
Femi Fani-Kayode was born to Remi Fani-Kayode and Adia Fani-Kayode (née Adunni) from Ile-Ife, Osun State. His great-grandfather, the Rev. Emmanuel Adedapo Kayode, was one of the earliest Nigerians to be educated in England, receiving an MA from the University of Durham, after which he became an Anglican priest. His grandfather, Victor Adedapo Kayode, studied law at Cambridge University and became a lawyer and a judge.
His father Victor Fani-Kayode, who was also at Cambridge, was a prominent lawyer and political figure in Nigeria in the 1950s and 1960s. He was leader of the opposition National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons in the Western House of Assembly from 1960 to 1963; the Hon. Minister of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and Deputy Premier of the Western Region of Nigeria from 1963 until 1966 and he successfully moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence in 1958 in the Nigerian Parliament.
Femi Fani-Kayode started his education at Brighton College, Brighton in the UK, after which he went to Holmewood House School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, South-East England. He entered Harrow School in Harrow on the Hill, United Kingdom, and later went to Kelly College in Tavistock, UK, where he completed the rest of his public school education. In 1980, Fani-Kayode went to the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies where he graduated with an LL.B law degree in 1983.
For his LLM, in 1984, he entered Cambridge University (Pembroke College) where his grandfather (Selwyn College), his father (Downing College) and his older brother, Akinola (Downing College) had all previously read law. Victor Adedapo Kayode, Femi’s grandfather, had been called to the British bar (at Middle Temple) in 1922 and his father, Remi Fani-Kayode, was called to the British bar (also at Middle Temple) in 1945.
After finishing from Cambridge, Femi Fani-Kayode went to the Nigerian Law School and in 1985 was called to the Nigerian Bar. In 1993, under the tutelage of Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams of Ghana, Femi Fani-Kayode became a Pentecostal Christian. He decided to go back to school to study theology at the Christian Action Faith Bible Seminary in Accra, Ghana, gaining a diploma in theology in 1995.
Political Journey
Femi Fani-Kayode was a member of the Nigerian National Congress (NNC) in 1989. He was elected the national youth leader of NNC that same year. In 1990, he was appointed as Chief Press Secretary to Chief Tom Ikimi, the first national chairman of the National Republican Convention (NRC) and in 1991 as Special Assistant to Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, former head of the Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO).
In 1996, disturbed by the actions of Gen. Sani Abacha’s military junta, Femi Fani-Kayode left Nigeria and joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) abroad where, together with the likes of the Oxford University-trained lawyer Chief Tunde Edu and others, he played a very active role in the pro-democracy campaign against the military regime of Abacha.
He came back to Nigeria in 2001 and met President Olusegun Obasanjo. At the beginning of 2003, Femi Fani-Kayode was appointed by the President as a member of his presidential campaign team for the 2003 presidential election. After President Obasanjo won that election, Femi Fani-Kayode was appointed as the first ever Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In 2006, he was appointed as the Honorable Minister of Culture and Tourism.
That same year, after a minor cabinet reshuffle, he was re-deployed to the Aviation Ministry as the Minister of Aviation. Since the end of the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration on 29 May 2007, Femi Fani-Kayode has gone back to the private sector and to his legal practice.
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