Just in: Prominent Northern Politician, Umaru Dikko, is dead

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A prominent northern politician and Minister of Transportation during the Second Republic, Umaru Dikko, is dead, his son, Bello Dikko, has said.

Mr. Dikko, 78, died early Tuesday in a London hospital, family members told PREMIUM TIMES.

He has been sick for “quite some time” and suffered three strokes in a row, a family member said.

Details later….

Meanwhile, below is Wikipedia entry for Mr. Dikko.

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Umaru Dikko (born 1936, Wamba) is a Nigerian politician and was a trusted adviser to President Shehu Shagari. He was also the Nigerian minister for Transportation from 1979-1983.

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 secretaryof a committee set up by General Hassan Katsina to unite the Northerners after a coup in 1966.^[1] 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 December 31, 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 July 5, 1984, he played the central role in the Dikko Affair; he was found drugged in a crate at Stansted Airport that was being claimed^[2] as Diplomatic Baggage, an apparent victim of a government sanctioned kidnapping.^[3] The crate’s destination was Lagos.^[4]