Sylvester Ayodele Arise is a Nigerian senator who represents the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in

Ekiti State Ekiti () is a state in southwestern Nigeria, bordered to the North by Kwara State for 61 km, to the Northeast by Kogi State for 92 km, to the South and Southeast by Ondo State, and to the West by Osun State for 84 km. Named for the Ekiti ...

. He became a member of the

Nigerian Senate The Senate is the upper chamber of Nigeria's bicameral legislature, the National Assembly. The National Assembly (popularly referred to as NASS) is the nation's legislature and has the power to make laws, as summarized in chapter one, sectio ...

in 2007.

Background

Ayodele Arise was born on 5 October 1956. His father was a judge. He was Assistant General Secretary of the Students Union at Ibadan Polytechnic (1976–1977). He obtained an M.Sc Urban & Regional Planning from

Alabama A&M University Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Alabama A&M or AAMU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Normal, Huntsville, Alabama. Founded in 1875, it took its present name in 1969. It was one of about 180 " normal s ...

Normal, Alabama Normal, Alabama is the home of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU), the largest HBCU in Alabama. The university is situated in Huntsville, Alabama's northern city limits in Madison County. Normal was established in 1890, when ...

USA in 1984. and is an A+ Certified Computer Engineer, Microsoft Certified Professional. After teaching mathematics and then working as a town planner, he entered into business in 1981 buying and selling video players and tapes in Nigeria. In the United States, he established a Computer Training Institute. In 2000 he launched Cards Technology Limited, a company that built the first Third Party Processing Facility in sub- sahara Africa for MasterCard International. This paved the way for the issuance of MasterCard by banks in Nigeria to their customers thereby opening up the opportunity for Nigerians to participate in ecommerce as we know it today. He also launched Fortune Games Limited for SMS Lottery.

Senate career

image:NigeriaEkiti.png, 200px,

in Nigeria Ayodele Arise was elected to the National Senate for the Ekiti North constituency in 2007 and was appointed as the Chairman Senate Committee on Privatization and member of other committees including Local and Foreign Debts, Water, Banking, Insurance & Other Financial Institutions. In July 2009 a court upheld the verdict of the Ekiti State Election Petitions Tribunal, which voided Arise's election after a petition had been filed by the Action Congress candidate, Mr. Olubunmi Adetunmbi, who alleged substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2006.

References

Living people Ekiti State politicians 1956 births Peoples Democratic Party members of the Senate (Nigeria) Senators of the 6th National Assembly (Nigeria) Yoruba politicians The Polytechnic, Ibadan alumni Nigerian expatriates in the United States {{Ekiti-politician-stub