Demola Seriki, Nigeria’s Ambassador to Spain, a chieftain of Lagos chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC and ally of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the party’s candidate for 2023 presidential election is dead.
Seriki died in Madrid, Spain on Thursday, his family said in a short statement.
It was not known if the 63-year-old former minister of defence was battling any ailment before his death.
The notice said that he died in Madrid, Spain in the early hours of Thursday surrounded by his family and children.
Seriki was appointed a minister on the platform of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
He, however, defected to the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN one of the parties which formed the ruling APC after losing the governorship ticket of the party for 2011 general election in Lagos to Dr Ade Dosunmu.
The deceased who defected alongside other PDP stalwarts to ACN which was then the ruling party in Lagos had predicted the death of his former party.
In an interview granted to City People Magazine when he turned 60, Seriki had predicted that Tinubu is Nigeria’s next president.
On how he met Tinubu, he said, “I have known Asiwaju Bola Tinubu since 1992. So, it is a relationship that dates over 27 years ago. We met at the INEC office. I was running for a Senatorial seat and he was also running for the Senate. So, INEC staffers had to screen the 2 of us together. So, it was an alphabetical screening of “ST” Seriki and Tinubu. That was how I met him and since then, we have been very cordial.”
He said he liked Tinubu “because he has touched a lot of people’s lives. When I was going to boarding school in 1971, my grandmother told me that the success of a man is not in the amount of wealth he has amassed, but in a number of people, he has made. Asiwaju has touched a lot of people’s lives. That is why I love him.”
He described himself as a teacher of Business and Accounting, Mathematics.