Biography Shehu Shagari (25 Feb. 1925 – 28 Dec. 2018)

Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari GCFR (25 February 1925 – 28 December 2018) was a Nigerian politician who was the first democratically elected president of Nigeria, after the transfer of power by military head of state General Olusegun Obasanjo in 1979 giving rise to the Second Nigerian Republic.

An experienced politician, he briefly worked as a teacher before entering politics in 1951; and was elected into the House of Representatives in 1954. At various times between 1958 through independence of Nigeria in 1960 and 1975, he held a cabinet post as a federal commissioner or as a federal minister. As President, Shagari presided over the mass deportation of West African migrants in 1983, which primarily impacted Ghanaian migrants in Nigeria.

Early years

Shehu Usman Shagari was born on 25 February 1925 in Shagari to a Sunni Muslim Fulani family. Shagari was founded by his greatgrandfather, Ahmadu Rufa’i. He was raised in a polygamous family, and was the sixth child born into the family. His father, Aliyu Shagari,was the Magajin Shagari (magaji means village head). Prior to becoming Magajin Shagari, Aliyu was a farmer, trader and herder. However, due to traditional rites that prevented rulers from participating in business, Aliyu relinquished some of his trading interests when he became the Magaji. Aliyu died five years after Shehu’s birth, and Shehu’s elder brother, Bello, briefly took on his father’s mantle as Magajin Shagari.

Shagari started his education in a Quranic school and then went to live with relatives at a nearby town, where from 1931 to 1935 he attended Yabo elementary school. In 1936–1940, he went to Sokoto for middle school, and then from 1941 to 1944 he attended Barewa College. Between 1944 and 1952, Shagari matriculated at the Teachers Training College, in Zaria, Kaduna, Nigeria. From 1953 to 1958, Shagari got a job as a visiting teacher in Sokoto Province. He was also a member of the Federal Scholarship Board from 1954 to 1958.

Political career

Entry into politics

Shehu Usman Shagari entered politics in 1951 when he became the secretary of the Northern People’s Congress in Sokoto, Nigeria, a position he held until 1956. However, his early Political activities started in 1945 when as a teacher, he founded a youth group called Youth Social Circle in Sokoto and became the secretary. The organization became one of the smaller groups that came together to be part of Northern People’s Congress (NPC) which was founded in 1948.

In 1948, when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe of the NCNC was touring Nigeria to raise funds to send a delegation to London to ask the colonial office to abrogate Richard’s constitution as undemocratic, Shehu Shagari who was a keen reader of the West-African Pilot paper was the only man of Sokoto origin to attend this meeting. When the British Provincial Educational Officer was informed of Shagari’s attendance, his salary increment was postponed that year to serve as a punishment.

The West-African Pilot was banned in the northern region schools and Shagari wrote for it an article for its revival in 1948. At the same time, Shagari had started advocating for the departure of colonial rule that he had produced a Hausa pamphlet carrying poetry which he named “Anti Colonialist” and put it in circulation. In 1950, Shagari, a young teacher at 25, was nominated by a British District officer H.A.S Johnson to participate in the Ibadan Conference to debate the Richards Constitution.

Election to parliament

In 1954, Shehu Shagari was elected into his first public office as a member of the federal

House of Representative for Sokoto west. In 1958, Shagari was appointed as parliamentary secretary (he left the post in 1959) to the Nigerian Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and that year he also served as the Federal Minister for Commerce and Industries.

Ministerial appointments

From 1959 to 1960, Shagari was the pioneer Federal Minister for Economic Development of independent Nigeria where his Ministry was responsible for drawing the 1962–1968 development plan. Shagari’s Ministry of Economic Development was also responsible for the establishment of the Niger-Delta Development Board. From 1960 to 1962, he was the Federal Minister for Pensions which undertook the mission of Nigerianization of the civil service. From 1962 to 1965, Shagari was made the Federal Minister for Internal Affairs. From 1965 up until the first military coup in January 1966, Shagari was the Federal Minister for Works and had executed many important projects including Eko Bridge Lagos which was the first major contract of the German construction firm Julius Berger in Nigeria, and the completion of the Niger Bridge which was commissioned in 1966 by Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. In 1967 he was appointed as the secretary for Sokoto Province Education Development Fund. From 1968 to 1969, Shagari was given a state position in the North-Western State as Commissioner for Establishments.

As a Member of the Parliament and a Federal Minister, Shagari led and was part of several Nigerian missions abroad. As Minister of Economic Development, he was a member of the Nigerian delegation to the Tangiers Conference of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) which was led by Minister of Finance Chief Festus Okotie Eboh. In 1961, he led the delegation to the tenth anniversary of Libya’s Independence. The same year, he was at the GATT Ministerial conference in Geneva, where he raised the issue of European Economic Community’s (ECC) discrimination against African countries like Nigeria who were not then associated with EEC. The same year, he led a delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPA) in London. He became the chairman of the next CPA Conference held in Lagos between October–November 1962.

In 1962, he led the delegation to the ECA meeting in Addis Ababa to the commission’s third meeting, the first which Nigeria attended as a full member where he strongly urged for a price stabilization arrangement for tropical products. In 1963, Shagari was Nigeria’s delegate to CPA meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Then in December 1965, just when Ian Smith made the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, Shehu Shagari attended the CPA conference in Wellington, New Zealand where he criticized and made an explicit denunciation of Ian Smith’s declaration. In the same meeting. Shagari also expressed concerns about Rhodesia now Zimbabwe where he criticizes the Britain colonial policies and the handling of Rhodesia’s situation. Shehu Shagari’s speech at the CPA conference was so significant and far-reaching that he received many commendations from other delegates. He also made headlines on New Zealand’s Christchurch Star of 4 December 1965, and The Morning Post of Wellington.

He also led a delegation to the first session of the Economic Social Commission of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Shagari also represented the Prime Minister on different occasions including when President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt invited the Nigerian Prime Minister Abubakar to inspect Egypt’s security arrangements. He also represented the Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa at Winston Churchill’s funeral.

Pre-presidency

Fall of the First Republic

Main articles: 1966 Nigerian coup d’état and 1966 Nigerian counter-coup

After the 1966 Nigerian coup d’état, Shagari was among the government officials who handed over government to the military leadership of Maj. Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi. He returned to Sokoto to promote education. He served as the Executive Secretary of the Sokoto Province Education Development Fund in 1967, where he built many provincial schools. He was later appointed as Commissioner of Establishment and Training and also served briefly as Commissioner for Education in the defunct North Western States before he was invited to serve under the Federal Military Government of Gen. Yakubu Gowon.

Minister after the Civil War

Following the Nigerian Civil War, from 1970 to 1971, Shagari was appointed by the military head of state General Yakubu Gowon as the federal commissioner for economic development, rehabilitation, and reconstruction which worked to carry out the reconciliation policy of Gowon’s Government. Shagari began reconstruction and rehabilitation of schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure in the South East. He also undertook the mission of persuading South Easterners to rejoin the civil service while negotiating the release of Biafran political prisoners after a letter written to him by Pius Okigbo was smuggled for him from Enugu Prisons.

From 1971 to 1975 he served as the Federal Commissioner (a position now called minister) of finance. During his tenure as the commissioner of finance for Nigeria, Shagari was also a governor for the World Bank and a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) committee of twenty. Shagari as the Federal Minister of Finance also launched the present Nigerian currency Naira. In 1976, Shagari initiated the Nigeria Trust Fund in African Development Bank with the sum of $100 million in order to assist poor African Countries to finance some of their developmental projects.

As a minister under Gowon, Shagari also undertook a peace mission to mediate between Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Idi Amin of Uganda in order to avert Uganda–Tanzania War by withdrawing their troops from the borders. After serving under Gen. Yakubu Gowon, he returned to Sokoto again to serve as the Chairman of Sokoto State Urban Development Authority (SUDA) during which he started building Sokoto Modern Market. In the wake of local government reforms under the Obasanjo led government. Shagari was elected as the counselor of Yabo Local Government in 1976.

Election to the presidency

Second Nigerian Republic

Afterward, he served in the 1977–1978 constituent assembly which drafted the 1979 constitution. In 1978, Shehu Shagari was a founding member of the National Party of Nigeria. In 1979 Shagari was chosen by the party as the presidential candidate for general election that year, which he won the 1979 election with the help of his campaign manager, Umaru Dikko. The campaign had the support of many prominent politicians in the North and among southern minorities. The party’s motto was “One Nation, One Destiny” and was seen as the party best representing Nigeria’s diversity.

At early ages.

Shagari’s government has recorded a number of successes in Education. In his fouryear term, there was a dramatic improvement in secondary schools and teachers in Teaching colleges multiplied. In 1981, a mass literacy campaign was launched and in 1982 a 6–3–3–5 system of education was introduced.[31] Shagari’s government also built several tertiary institutions in Nigeria. New Universities of Technology were established in Bauchi, Benue, Adamawa, Ondo, Imo, and Osun States. They are Federal University of Technology Yola, Federal University of Technology Akure, Federal University of Technology Owerri, Federal University of Technology Minna, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University. Shagari’s administration also upgraded seven other existing colleges of Education to degreeawarding institutions in Abraka, Ondo, Kano, Ado Ekiti, Bidda, Port Harcourt, and Zaria and also established eight other Federal polytechnics in Ado Ekiti, Bidda, Bauchi, Idah, Uwana (Afikpo), Yola and Ilaro. The Federal Open University was also established during the end of Shagari’s administration in 1981. It also offered scholarships for students studying abroad.

The Shagari Presidency will be remembered for his giant strides in encouraging women and youth in nation-building. On assumption to office, he gave directives to States to provide at least one woman and one youth out of the seven nominees. During his campaign, he selected a woman from Imo State as his running mate, to be his Vice President. However, she declined after previously accepting, due to a lack of support from stakeholders in Southern Eastern Nigeria where the Vice-Presidential Ticket was zoned to, it was the closest Nigerian women have ever been to the presidency. Nevertheless, the first female Ministers and diplomats in Nigeria were appointed by Shagari. He appointed Ebun Oyagbola as the Minister of National Planning and later Ambassador to the United Mexican States of Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala and Mrs. Janet Akinrinade as State Minister of Internal Affairs and two other female Ministers Mrs. Asinobi and Mrs. Ivasi. Similarly, Mrs. Elizabeth Ogbon was appointed Consul General to Hamburg Germany, Mrs. R Mohammed was Nigeria Ambassador to Botswana and Zimbabwe.Whereas, several young people had joined Shagari’s government and Ministers and Advisers. One of the famous ones is Prof. Pat Utomi, who was 29 when he was appointed as Economic Advisers. Ministers appointed in their early 30s are Audu Innocent Ogbeh (32) and Bello Maitama Yusuf (34). Many of the cabinet Ministers were below 50 years of age.

Source: wikipedia.org