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Nigeria lost one of its founding democratic figures on Saturday as Alhaji (Dr.) Bamanga Tukur, the Tafida of Adamawa, passed away aged 90.
His media aide, Chief Victor Okpala made this known in a statement released on behalf of the family.
According to the statement, the former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took his last breath at 12 noon at his residence on Adetokunbo Ademola Street, Wuse 2, Abuja, two days shy of his 91st birthday.
Okpala said the body of the elder statesman would be flown to Adamawa immediately for burial in accordance with Islamic rites.
Meanwhile, sympathisers, close relations and political associates have already thronged his Abuja residence to pay their last respects.
Reacting to his father’s death, Rt. Hon. Awwal Tukur, Secretary to the Government of Adamawa State, said, “It has happened according to the will of Allah, the Greatest and Most Merciful.”
He added that the family would take solace in the exemplary life their father lived and the monumental legacies he bequeathed to posterity while alive.
Dr. Bamanga Tukur was a technocrat, investor, entrepreneur and statesman with decades of service to Nigeria.
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He served as Managing Director and later Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, during which tenure most of the ports serving Nigeria today were built.
He was elected Governor of old Gongola State, now split into Adamawa, Taraba and parts of other states.
He also served as a Federal Minister.
In business, he built multiple conglomerates and became *lChairman of the African Business Roundtable (ABR)*l, the umbrella body for African business.
He made history as the first African to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York as a private individual, not as a head of state or government.
Dr. Tukur also served as National Chairman of the PDP, a period the family said brought “sanity, progress, electoral victories and political decorum” to the party.
“Alhaji Dr. Bamanga Tukur will be missed by a greater population of Nigerians whom he taught politics, governance and business,” the statement reads in part.
He is survived by children, grand and great-grandchildren.
