Gbenga Olawepo Hashim is a Nigerian Human Rights Activist who protested against the military regime in the 1980s as well as late military dictator Sani Abacha, alongside other notable activists before he pursued a career in political communications and eventually ventured into partisan politics in 1995. However, he is particularly now known as the presidential candidate of the newly registered Peoples Trust Party in the upcoming 2019 election. Mr Hashim made his entrance into partisan politics when he became the National Publicity Secretary of the National Democratic Labour Party (NDLP) in the transition programme announced by the Abacha regime. After his party alongside some other political parties and politicians were denied registration during Abacha’s regime, he founded an association with principled politicians who opposed Abacha’s dictatorship. The association first organised around the Institute for Civil Society and G-34 and later pioneered the formation of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) which is currently Nigeria’s major opposition party.

Mr Hashim played a major role over the years for the PDP which he helped formulate as well as in Nigeria’s democratic transition which led to former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s election in 1999. He eventually became elected as the party’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary. However, Mr Hashim who was among the founding fathers of the PDP resigned from the party due to changes in the party which he described as anti-democratic and later ran for governor of Kwara state in 2007 on the platform of the Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP). He emerged as the first runner-up but the election was declared fraudulent which led to his retreat to the UK where he returned back to school.

Read more and view photos at https://olatorera.com/politics-in-nigeria-who-is-gbenga-olawepo-hashim-how-does-he-plan-to-defeat-buhari-and-atiku-in-the-2019-presidential-election/