Founder of the Nigerian Advance Party (NAP) Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, has died at the age of 82.
The elder statesman passed on at St. Nicholas Hospital, Lagos on Monday according to family sources.
He was said to have died after a brief illness.
Braithwaite was born in 1933, the youngest son of eight children.
He was educated at the prestigious CMS Grammar School, Lagos, entering the school’s Preparatory Section in 1946 and completing his education there in 1953.
He proceeded to sit for his A Levels at the London University at Kennington College in 1955 and enrolled in 1957/58 as a Law student at the Council of Legal Education, London.
He was admitted into Lincoln’s Inn that same year and graduated as a barrister in 1960.
Among the high profile clients he represented were Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
He contested the 1983 presidential election on the platform of NAP.
Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria was declared winner of the election.
NAP was one of 28 political parties de-registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on December 7, 2012.
He married his childhood sweetheart, Grace Falade, in 1956 while they were undergraduates. They have 5 children and many grandchildren
Braithwaite never made the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), a title he called “archaic and backward”.
RIP