Femi Fani-Kayode - Background and Education

Background and Education

Femi Fani-Kayode comes from a prominent political and legal family in Nigeria. His great grandfather, the Rev. Emmanuel Adedapo Kayode, was one of the earliest Nigerians to be educated in England having obtained 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 later became a lawyer and a judge. His father Victor Babaremilekun Adetokunboh 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 National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons Opposition 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 primary school education at the age of 8 at Brighton College, Brighton in the U.K. after which he went to Holmewood House School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, South-East England. After prep school he gained entry into Harrow School in Harrow on the Hill, United Kingdom and later on into Kelly College in Tavistock, U.K., where he completed the rest of his public school education. In 1980 Femi Fani-Kayode proceeded to the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies where he graduated with an LL.B law degree in 1983. He gained entry into 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, was called to the British bar (Middle Temple) in 1922 and his father, Remi Fani-Kayode, was called to the British bar (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.