Former Lagos State deputy governor, Chief Rafiu Bakare Jafojo, who governed with Lateef Jakande, has died at 80.
He died in Lagos on Saturday, April 23, 2016 after a brief illness.
The late Jafojo who was a very vocal politician when he was alive was born on December 6, 1935.
His parents were the late Pa Bakare Adeyefa Jafojo in Ebute Meta and the late Madam Taiwo (nee Adebunmi) of Ebute Meta, Lagos, but he grew up in Isale Awori, Ikeja.
Jafojo attended Alafia Institute, Ibadan and Christ High School, Ilubinrin, Lagos, where he wrote the West African School Certificate Examination and passed with flying colours.
He began his working career in 1959 as a building inspector with the Ikeja Town Planning Authority, but left for England In 1961; his bosom friend Chief Ayo Otegbola was with him on the trip.
Three years later, he gained admission into Hackney Technical College, England to study building engineering. After obtaining a National Certificate in 1966, he moved to Brixon School of Engineering, where he graduated with a Higher National Certificate in Building.
Due to his thirst for further education, in 1969, he proceeded to the Northern Polytechnic, Holloway (now University of North) London, where he bagged an Advanced Certificate in Building Technology a year later.
It is on record that while in England, Chief Jafojo was a student-activist; he was a member of the West African Students Union. It was from here he honed his skills in partisan politics.
Upon his return to Nigeria, he pitched tent with the Egbe Afenifere.
He took off by mobilising and encouraging the Awori to be politically conscious. Between 1975 and 1977, he was elected a councillor in Ikeja Local Government and later became chairman, General Purpose Committee.
In 1978, when the army prepared to return the country to political rule, the late Jafojo joined the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), whose founder/national leader was the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Although his ambition was to be a lawmaker, Chief Awolowo encouraged him to join the then governorship candidate Alhaji Lateef Jakande as his running mate. The joint ticket worked; they won the election.
Thus on October I, 1979, Chief Jafojo, alongside Alhaji Jakande was sworn in as the first democratically elected deputy governor of Lagos State.
