By Adekunle Aliyu

The Court of Appeal sitting in Ilorin has sacked the Ekiti State governor, Segun Oni. In its ruling granted Friday, the Court asked Mr Kayode Fayemi, his opponent and Action Congress governorship candidate in the 2007  election, to take over as the legitimate governor and winner of the election.

Kayode Fayemi, (born February 9, 1965) is a native of Isan-Ekiti in Oye Local Government of Ekiti State, Nigeria.

He attended Christ’s School, Ado Ekiti 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.

Kayode Fayemi contested for the Ekiti state governorship in the 2007 elections on the platform of the Action Congress party.

In his manifesto, Mr Fayemi made poverty, education and healthcare his priority. The implementation of which he asserted will be consultative, including being open to ideas from the diaspora.

Kayode fayemi

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.

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).