Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo, Former governor of Kwara State and one-time minister of communications,is dead at age 84.
He was reported dead early Wednesday morning in Abuja, according to information from his family who broke the news.
Adebayo, who was born on February 24, 1941, in Igbaja, Kwara State, served as governor of the state in 1983.
Before then, he was elected as a senator in 1979 under the Unity Party of Nigeria.
In the 1990s, he joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a group of activists who opposed military rule and fought to reclaim the mandate believed to have been given to MKO Abiola in the annulled 1993 presidential election.
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That same year, it was reported that Adebayo rejected an offer to serve as a minister under General Sani Abacha who was a notorious military dictator.
However, In 1995, a bomb blast in Ilorin led to his arrest alongside other NADECO members.
History had it that the following year, he fled to Canada for a short exile when reports said the military was once again targeting him.
From 2003 to 2006, Adebayo served as Nigeria’s minister of communications under President Olusegun Obasanjo at the return of democracy.