Former Kwara Governor, Cornelius Adebayo Is Dead

Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo, a former governor of Kwara State and one-time senator, has died.

According to TheCable, family sources said that Cornelius Adebayo died early Wednesday morning in Abuja at the age of 84.

Adebayo was born on February 24, 1941, in Igbaja, a town in Kwara State. He served as the state’s governor in 1983.

His political journey began in 1979 when he was elected to the Senate under the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Later, from 2003 to 2006, he served as Nigeria’s Minister of Communications.

Adebayo was also known for his involvement in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a group that pushed for the restoration of MKO Abiola’s mandate after the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election.

He turned down a ministerial offer from the Sani Abacha regime in 1993. In 1995, after a bomb blast occurred in Ilorin, Adebayo and other NADECO members were arrested and questioned by police.

The increasing pressure from the military government forced him into temporary exile in Canada in 1996.

Before his rise in politics, Adebayo had already made an impact as Kwara State’s Commissioner for Education from 1975 to 1978, where he introduced several reforms to improve the sector.

KanyiDaily also reported that Jesutega Onokpasa, a well-known lawyer and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), recently died.