Bisi Fayemi (First Lady of Ekiti State, Nigeria)

• Born in Liverpool, England, on Tuesday, June 11, 1963.

• She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in History from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. She also received an MA in Gender and Society (1992) from Middlesex University, UK.

• Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a British-Nigerian feminist, activist, writer and policy advocate. In 2001, she co-founded the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), the first Pan-African grant-making organisation. She serves as a UN Women Nigeria Senior Advisor, and was appointed as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, University of London in 2017. She is CEO of Above Whispers Limited, and runs an online community called abovewhispers.com.

• When her husband, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, took office as Governor of Ekiti State, Nigeria, she became actively involved in a range of policy advocacy, grass-roots empowerment and social inclusion programmes in Ekiti State. She led the campaign to enact a Gender Based Violence Prohibition Law (2011, revised in October 2019), an Equal Opportunities Bill (2013) and the HIV Anti-Stigma Bill (2014). She continues to work on the implementation and sustenance of these initiatives as First Lady of Ekiti State for the second time.

• Adeleye-Fayemi was given the Changing the Face of Philanthropy award by the Women’s Funding Network in 2007, and was named one of the 20 most influential African women in 2009 by the New African magazine.

• In 2011, Women Deliver listed her as one of the top 100 people in the world advancing the rights of women and girls.

• Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi clocked 59 on Saturday, June 11, 2022.