Umaru Dikko

Umaru Abdulrahman Dikko (31 December 1936[1] – 1 July 2014) was a Nigerian politician. He was an adviser to President Shehu Shagari and served as minister for transportation from 1979 to 1983.

Dikko was born in Wamba.[2] He started playing a role in the nation's governance in 1967, when he was appointed as a commissioner in the then North Central State of Nigeria (now Kaduna State). He was also secretary of a committee set up by General Hassan Katsina to unite the Northerners after a coup in 1966.[3] In 1979, he was made Shagari's campaign manager for the successful presidential campaign of the National Party of Nigeria. During the nation's Second Republic, he played prominent roles as transport minister and head of the presidential task force on rice.

A military coup on 31 December 1983, overthrew the government of Shagari. Dikko fled into exile in London as well as a few other ministers and party officials of the National Party of Nigeria. The new military regime accused him of large-scale corruption while in office, in particular of embezzling millions of dollars from the nation's oil revenues.

On 5 July 1984, he played the central role in the Dikko Affair; he was found drugged in a crate at Stansted Airport that was being claimed[4] as diplomatic baggage, an apparent victim of a government sanctioned kidnapping.[5] The crate's destination was Lagos.[6] He died in London in 2014, aged 77.[7][8]

He was the leader of Solidarity Group of Nigeria (SGN) that merged with the United Nigeria Congress Party during the Sani Abacha regime, In the Fourth Republic he formed the United Democratic Party (UDP), he was appointed to head the National Disciplinary Committee of the PDP in 2013.

Notes
  1. http://www.peoplesdailyng.com/second-republic-minister-umaru-dikko-dies-at-london-home/
  2. Jessup, John E. (3 August 1998). "An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945-1996". Greenwood Publishing Group. Retrieved 3 August 2017 – via Google Books.
  3. Shehu Shagari, Beckoned to Serve
  4. The foiled Nigerian kidnap plot, Alex Last, BBC World Service, 12 November 2012 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20211380
  5. "The World's Greatest Spy Capers - The Dikko Affair (1984)" - http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/30/the-world-s-greatest-spy-capers/the-dikko-affair-1984.html
  6. "Why Dikko was seized; KIDNAP IN LONDON," Financial Times (London,England), 7 July 1984
  7. "Former Transport Minister, Umaru Dikko Dies". 1 July 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2017.
  8. Weber, Bruce (8 July 2014). "Umaru Dikko, Ex-Nigerian Official Who Was Almost Kidnapped, Dies". Retrieved 3 August 2017 – via NYTimes.com.

References


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