ABDULLAHI Adamu, a two-time former Nasarawa State Governor, has emerged as  the national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

With his emergence, he joins the long list of Nigerians to preside over the affairs of the party since its inception in February 2013.

The former Nasarawa State Governor was adopted as a consensus candidate by over 7,500 delegates at the national convention of the party held in Eagles Square, Abuja on Saturday.

Adamu’s election was endorsed by the party delegates as four frontline contestants who had earlier indicated interest to seek the office stepped down for him hours before the election kicked off.

They include a former governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura; former Benue governor and current Minister of Special Duties, George Akume; a senator for Niger East, Sani Musa; former Deputy Chairman of the defunct CPC and former Zamfara governor Abdulaziz Yari.

Adamu takes over the office from the former Edo state governor Adams Oshiomole who was sacked by the party while Mai Mala Buni, current Yobe governor-led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) was brought in to conduct an election in six months.

Adamu was born on July 23, 1946, and started his education at Abdu Zanga Primary School, Keffi which he completed at the Laminga Senior Primary School in 1959.

After his secondary education at the Government Technical College, Bukuru, Adamu proceeded to the Kaduna Polytechnic where he obtained a National Diploma in Building and Civil Engineering before graduating in 1968.

He had brief employment after the diploma course with the National Electric Power Authority as a maintenance supervisor. Adamu completed a Higher National Diploma (HND) at the Kaduna Polytechnic in 1970 before taking up an appointment with the Northern Nigeria Development Corporation (NNDC) in Kaduna.

After consulting for AEK, a consulting firm, Adamu was appointed the Executive Secretary of BEPCO (Benue-Plateau Construction Company) with headquarters in Jos in 1975.

In 1983, Adamu enrolled in the pioneer class of the part-time Law degree of the University of Jos, which he completed in 1992 before enrolling into the Nigeria Law School and was called to the bar as a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1993.

Abdullahi Adamu is married to Hajia Khadijat and has five children.

Going into Politics

Adamu’s foray into politics started in 1977 when he was elected into the Constituent Assembly, a body saddled with the responsibility of drafting Nigeria’s Second Republic Constitution of 1979.

He joined the National Movement as a pioneer member before the party was changed to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) serving as the Secretary and later Chairman of the NPN in Plateau State in 1980.

In 1993, former Nigerian military Head of State Sani Abacha appointed him as a member of the National Constitutional Conference to draft the constitution for a new democratic government that never saw the light of day.

He was later appointed as Minister of State in the Ministry of Works and Housing in March 1995, where he served until November 17, 1997. As Minister, he was actively involved in the United Nations-sponsored programme for urban, housing and environmental development known as “Habitat II”.

At the lifting of the ban on politics in 1997 by the Abacha junta, he joined the defunct United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) as a member and was a frontline gubernatorial aspirant in Nasarawa State until the death of Abacha in 1998.

With the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999, Adamu joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) contesting the governorship election in Nasarawa State which he won by a landslide and was sworn into office on May 29, 1999.

In 2003, he was re-elected for a second term, winning the elections in a massive landslide. He ended his tenure in 2007.

It will be recalled that Adamu declared his intention to run for the Nasarawa West senatorial seat in September 2010, a few months away from the 2011 general elections under the platform of the PDP, which he won.

He later defected from the PDP and joined the APC and won his second term ticket as a senator in the Red Chamber. Similarly, he won a third term in the February 23, 2019 general elections as an APC candidate beating Bala Ahmed Aliyu, his opponent from the opposition PDP in the senatorial district.

Adamu is currently a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.