Funsho Williams was the Lagos civil servant and politician murdered in July 2006 during preparations for the 2007 elections. Born 1948 in Lagos, Funsho schooled at St Paul’s Catholic School, Ebute Metta; St Gregory’s College, Lagos and got his bachelors degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Lagos in 1968. He also obtained a masters degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in the United States. He joined the Lagos civil service in 1974 to retire in 1991 as a Permanent Secretary of Works.
Williams started pursuing a career in politics first by joining General Abacha’s United National Congress Party, and after Abacha’s demise which ushered in renewed hope for proper democracy, joined the Alliance for Democracy, a party of professed progressives. He was unsuccessful in his gubernatorial bid in the 1999 Lagos State elections, and he switched his allegiance to the more conservative People’s Democratic Party. He ran for governor a second time in 2003, but lost to the incumbent, Bola Tinubu. Williams appeared to have a good chance of emerging as the People’s Democratic Party’s candidate for the 2007 Governorship election but was found dead at his Ikoyi home, tied up and strangled while his wife was away on a holiday.
