Political Career
Femi Fani-Kayode was a member of the Nigerian National Congress (NNC) in 1989. He was elected the national youth leader of NNC that same year. In 1990, he was appointed as Chief Press Secretary to Chief Tom Ikimi, the first national chairman of the National Republican Convention (NRC) and in 1991 as Special Assistant to Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, former head of the Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO). In 1996, disturbed by the actions of Gen. Sani Abacha’s military junta, Femi Fani-Kayode left Nigeria and joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) abroad where, together with the likes of the Oxford University-trained lawyer Chief Tunde Edu and others, he played a very active role in the fight against Abacha. He came back to Nigeria in 2001 and met President Olusegun Obasanjo. At the beginning of 2003, Femi Fani-Kayode was appointed by the President as a member of his presidential campaign team for the 2003 presidential election. After President Obasanjo won that election Femi Fani-Kayode was appointed as the first ever Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In 2006 he was appointed as the Honourable Minister of Culture and Tourism. That same year, after a minor cabinet reshuffle, he was redeployed to the Aviation Ministry as the Honourable Minister of Aviation. Since the end of the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration on 29 May 2007, Femi Fani-Kayode has gone back to the private sector and to his legal practice.
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