President Bola Tinubu and Kayode Fayemi
My relationship with Dr Kayode Fayemi dates back to our time together in the pro-democracy movement in the 90s when we mounted local and international campaigns against military dictatorship.
During the challenging General Sani Abacha era, civil rights and pro-democracy activists, especially those in exile, had to rely on their ingenuity to survive. Kayode’s brilliance, commitment, and strategic skills were invaluable to our cause.
The struggle for Chief MKO Abiola’s release from incarceration and the de-annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, then considered the freest and fairest in Nigeria, led to the constriction of the civic space by the military.
The military government routinely raided and proscribed newspapers such as the Concord, Punch, Guardian, and magazines such as Tempo/TheNews and TELL. General Abacha was running amok, arresting activists, jailing journalists, and instilling fears in anyone opposed to his oppressive regime. There was a need to have a radio station covering the activities of the pro-democracy movement at home and abroad and putting more significant pressure on the Abacha junta. Dr Fayemi and other activists actualised the birth of the pro-democracy radio, Radio Kudirat, named in honour of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, who agents of the Abacha regime murdered.
The deaths of General Abacha and Chief Abiola in 1998 changed the course of events for all of us. The engagement strategy needed to be re-appraised. When General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who succeeded Abacha, announced a short transition programme, many of us in the pro-democracy movement decided to return home to participate.
Dr. Fayemi returned to Nigeria in 1999 to establish the Centre for Democracy and Development, an organisation dedicated to promoting democracy, peace-building and security in Nigeria and Africa. He also operated the centre in Accra, Ghana.
In 2006, Dr. Fayemi transitioned from being a public intellectual to a political leadership role as state governor. After a keenly contested party primaries, Fayemi became our party’s candidate for the 2007 governorship election in Ekiti State against the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Engr. Segun Oni. Though the PDP candidate was declared the winner of the election, it was clear that Dr Fayemi and our party, Action Congress, had been cheated out of an apparent victory. We decided to challenge the election at the Election Petitions Tribunal. After a long-drawn, painful, rigorous and emotionally draining court process that lasted over three years, Dr Fayemi was declared the winner in 2010 after a court-ordered re-run that also ended up at the Election Petitions Tribunal and the Appeal Court.
