A former senator and ex-governor of Kwara State, Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo, has died at age 84.

Family sources who confirmed Adebayo’s death to newsmen said the ex-governor died early on Wednesday morning in Abuja.

The deceased was born on February 24, 1941, in Oke-Onigbin community of Kwara and became the governor of the state in 1983.

He served as Minister of Communications from 2003 to 2006 and was elected a senator on the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) platform in 1979.

Adebayo was a member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) as pro-democracy activists sought to reclaim the mandate handed to MKO Abiola in the June 12, 1993, presidential election.

In 1993, Adebayo was offered a ministerial position in the Sani Abacha junta but declined.

On May 31, 1995, The police arrested and interrogated Adebayo along with other NADECO members over a bomb explosion that occurred in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara.

He fled the country in 1996 for a brief exile in Canada as the junta reportedly closed in on him for a second time.

Adebayo is known for introducing many educational reforms in Kwara state while he served as the state’s education commissioner from 1975 to 1978.