July 1, 2014
Nigeria’s Second Republic Minister of Transport, Alhaji Umaru Dikko has died this morning in the United Kingdom.
His family in London and Zaria in Kaduna state confirmed news of his passing to SaharaReporters.
Dikko has been ill for several months; however, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) forced him to chair the party’s disciplinary committee set up by ousted chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur last year.
One of his close associate told this medium last year that Dikko accepted the job at the risk of his life.
Mr. Dikko was popularly known as one of the most powerful ministers under the Shehu Shagari regime in the early 1980s. When the military ousted the regime via a coup d’etat in 1983, Mr. Dikko escaped to the UK on exile. The military regime led by then head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, accused Dikko of massive corruption and official graft and thus secretly organized his kidnapping from the streets of London.
In 1984, Mr. Dikko was kidnapped, drugged and packaged as a diplomatic baggage in a cargo ready to be shipped to Lagos Nigeria unconscious. His abductors were later arrested by the UK police as they tried to ship him through Stansed airport in London.
Dikko later returned to Nigeria where he has since participated in politics. He was aged 78.
