Umaru Dikko

Umaru Dikko Biography / Profile

Umaru Abdulrahman Dikko was born on December 31st, 1936 in Wamba Nasarawa State, Nigeria. He was an important member of the civilian government of his brother-in-law President Shehu Shagari.

Umaru Dikko Age

Umaru Dikko would have been 87 years old, if he were alive today. May his soul rest in peace.

Umaru Dikko Early Life

Dikko was educated in Barewa College, Zaria, Kaduna State.

Umaru Dikko Career

In 1967, seven years after Independence, he was appointed a commissioner in the North Central State (now Kaduna State). He was also secretary of a committee set up by General Hassan Katsina to unite the North after a coup in 1966, which, he recalled, “wiped out our leaders for no just cause”. Shagari chose Dikko to manage his successful 1979 presidential campaign. During the Second Republic that followed, he was Minister of Transport and head of a task force on rice.

Dikko fled to London when Shagari's government was overthrown in a military coup in 1983. The incoming regime put him at the top of a list of allegedly corrupt ex-ministers, accusing him of having embezzled £300 million in oil revenues, and launched a search for him. In July 1984, Dikko while living in exile after the coup, was kidnapped outside his London estate, packed in a shipping crate and driven to Stansted Airport, to be flown back to Lagos, where he stood accused of embezzlement and other crimes. The abduction was witnessed by his secretary, who alerted Scotland Yard. The plot was foiled by customs officials, who held up the flight, opened two crates marked “diplomatic baggage” and discovered not only a drug-stupefied Mr. Dikko, but also three of his kidnappers, who were shipping themselves to Africa as well. The joint Nigerian-Israeli effort to kidnap him was later called the Dikko Affair.

Umaru Dikko Personal Life

Dikko died in London on July 1st, 2014 after suffering three strokes. Among his surviving family were Jenny Hafsat Dikko his the British-born widow and his son, Dr Bello Dikko. The body of late Dikko was buried at the Baan Zazzau burial ground in Zaria on July 8th after the Janniazah (Muslim burial rites), with only very few dignitaries present.