Veteran politician and elder statesman, Alhaji Musa Musawa, is dead.
He died in Kaduna on Tuesday night at the age of 86 after a protracted illness.
His daughter, Barrister Hannatu Musawa, confirmed the story about his demise to the New Citizen on phone.
A source within the family said Alhaji Musawa will be buried on Wednesday in Kaduna.
The deceased was a renown politician since the First Republic when he became the youth leader of the Northern Elements People’s Union (NEPU), the main opposition party led by Malam Aminu Kano. Subsequently, he became a close confidante of Malam Aminu, especially in the Second Republic under the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), the successor of NEPU.
Alhaji Musa Musawa was born on April 1, 1937 in Bichi, Kano State. His father took him to live in Musawa town in present day Katsina State with his maternal relatives after the death of his mother in Bichi.
He attended elementary school in Funtua before moving back to Bichi where he stayed and attended secondary school in Kano.
It was at that time that he became the NEPU youth leader in Bichi.
Subsequently, he studied Public Administration at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), after which he started working at the Hausa Service of the BBC in London.
After five years at the BBC, Musawa went to Cambridge University where he studied Mandarin in preparation for a career in diplomatic service. He was eventually employed by the Nigerian Ministry of External Affairs and was posted to Uganda. He also worked at the Nigerian High Commission in India.
He left government service at the onset of the Second Republic and joined politics, becoming the national treasurer of the PRP.
In 1983, he contested the governorship election of Kaduna State under the PRP but lost in the primaries. A few months later, the Second Republic was terminated by the military coup d’etat that ushered in Major-General Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State.
Musawa established his company, Manema, under which he continued to trade and engaged in farming.
When the Third Republic came, he joined forces with Major-General Shehu Yar’Adua under the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in which he made an unsuccessful bid for the Senate.
Following the collapse of that republic, Musawa retired from politics.
Since the onset of the current civilian rule in 1999 he had not enjoyed good health as he battled diabetes, staying mostly at home.
Alhaji Musa Musawa was a grassroots politician who will be remembered for his pro-talakawa (common people) activism and oratory.
His daughter, Hannatu Musawa, a lawyer, is the deputy spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council which worked for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election held on February 25.
Tinubu had taken time off to visit him at home during his campaign tour in Kaduna a few months ago.
