Lief Achievement Award
From the time Sen. Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko earned a Teachers’ Certificate from the Sokoto Teachers’ College, and began life as a teacher, he showed great determination to be a successful public servant. He rose through the ranks to become a headmaster and later acting Education Officer.
Sen Wamakko later attended the University of Pittsburgh in the United States of America, where he obtained his first and second degrees before returning to Nigeria for the National Youth Service in 1980.
He stands out among the few politicians who really care about the wellbeing of the people as a visit to his house in Sokoto shows that there is free entry and free exit even in his absence. The unfettered access the masses have to him appears to be his staying power.
As a civil servant, he reached the peak of his career as a Permanent Secretary in several ministries.
He had a phenomenal outing in politics, when, in1999, he emerged as deputy governor on the platform of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP) with Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa as the governor.
As deputy governor, he supervised the local government councils as commissioner in charge of the ministry from 1999 to 2004. This gave him the opportunity to build his political structure, comprising mostly grassroots politicians in the 23 councils of the state, a development that made it easy for him to emerge as governor in 2007, when he was first elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Sen Wamakko got re-elected as governor in 2011 and at the expiration of his tenure in 2015, he was elected a Senator, on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). At the Senate, he has made remarkable contributions to the development of the country.
He is a winner of The Sun Lifetime Achievement Award 2024.