David Oluwafemi Adewunmi Abdulateef Fani-Kayode (// ⓘ; born 16 October 1960) is a Nigerian politician, author and lawyer.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Fani-Kayode became the Special Assistant on Public Affairs to Olusegun Obasanjo from July 2003 to June 2006.

Emmanuel Adedapo Kayode, was one of the earliest Nigerians to be educated in England, receiving an MA from the University of Durham, after which he became an Anglican priest.

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 pro-democracy campaign against the military regime of Abacha.

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.

[citation needed] Femi Fani-Kayode was investigated and arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in July 2008, in connection with alleged misappropriation of a 19.5 billion naira (approx.

[5][6] The Senate Committee on Aviation in early 2008, initially recommended that Fani-Kayode be banned from holding public office for five years but later withdrew it.

Yar'Adua's loyalists resisted this suggestion and part of their response to that challenge was to implement another strategy to try to silence and intimidate President Obasanjo and his key loyalists, including El-Rufai, Fani-Kayode, Ribadu, Lawal Batagarawa, Nnenadi Usman and Andy Uba, by accusing them of plotting a coup.

[19] Fani-Kayode was discharged and acquitted on 1 July 2015, by a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on the two-count charge of money laundering preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

The court held that the EFCC was unable to prove the charges against Fani-Kayode beyond reasonable doubt and consequently acquitted him.

The allegedly laundered sum was however reduced to N2.1m on 17 November 2014 after Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia, dismissed 38 out of the 40 counts levelled against Fani-Kayode by the EFCC for want of proof.

In 2016 he was accused of misappropiating 8 billion naira of public funds which he allegedly used for President Goodluck Jonathan's presidential campaign and prosecuted by EFCC from 2016 to 2023 at the Federal High Court in Lagos before Hon.

In 2016 he was accused of illegally receiving 26 million naira from the office of the National Security Advisor to President Goodluck Jonathan, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, and was prosecuted by EFCC from 2016 to 2025 at the Federal High Court Abuja before Hon.

[26][27][28] In January 2010, approximately two months after Yar'Adua left Nigeria and was flown to Saudi Arabia on medical grounds (during which time no Nigerian other than his wife and his chief security officer saw him or any pictures of him), there were strong speculations in the country that the president was dead, was in a deep coma or was so sick that he could not speak or get up from his sick bed in his Saudi Arabian hospital.

[31][32] To convey his view Fani-Kayode wrote a satire in Next Newspaper and titled it "Corpsology: Umaru's Gift To The Modern World".

In the article Fani-Kayode suggested that by insisting on ruling Nigeria from his sick bed in Saudi Arabia and through his acolytes and wife, the President and his supporters were not just breaching the Nigerian constitution but that they were also surreptitiously introducing an entirely new and alien system of government into Nigeria, destroying democracy and attempting to perpetuate themselves in power through that new system indefinitely.

Fani-Kayode defined his concept of corpsology (or "corpsocracy" as he sometimes calls it) as "the rulership of the living by the dead" and the thrust and intent of his satire was to clearly convey the message that the attempt to introduce this hitherto unknown system of government into Nigeria by Yar'Adua, his wife and his cabinet was unacceptable and should not be allowed to stand.

[33] On 7 August 2010 Fani-Kayode wrote another article titled "Charles Taylor: A Man Betrayed" in which he described the events and circumstances leading up to the extradition of the infamous former President of Liberia Charles Taylor from Nigeria, where he had been given refuge and asylum after a bitter war and crisis in his nation Liberia.

Fani-Kayode explained how Taylor ended up being handed back to Liberia and how he was then sent to the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Finally he called for the trial of former President George W. Bush and Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair at the same International Criminal Court at The Hague for what he described as "similar crimes against humanity" as the ones that Taylor was being accused of.

He alleged that they had committed these crimes during the illegal invasion of Iraq and the bombing of Baghdad in which he claimed that "hundreds of thousands of defenceless and innocent Iraqi women and children" were killed.

The article was published the day after the sensational appearance of super-model Naomi Campbell at the famous "blood diamonds" trial of Charles Taylor at The Hague.

[35] Fani-Kayode was also involved in a debate about the mysterious circumstances under which Nigeria's first Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, lost his life.