Bashir Tofa, a former presidential candidate, is dead.
Mr Tofa died in the early hours of Monday at the age of 74 after a protracted illness.
A close associate of the deceased, Magaji Galadima (Kachallan Kano), announced the death in a Facebook post.
Mr Galadima wrote: “Allahu akbar, we eventually lost Alh. Bashir Tofa. May Allah grant him eternal rest.”
Mr Tofa was the presidential candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in the June 12, 1993 election considered one of Nigeria’s freest elections.
Born in Kano on June 20, 1947, Mr Tofa had his primary education at Shahuci Junior Primary, Kano and continued at City Senior Primary School in Kano. From 1962 to 1966, he attended Provincial College, Kano.
After completing his studies at the Provincial school, he worked for Royal Exchange Insurance company from 1967 to 1968. From 1970 to 1973, he attended City of London College.
Mr Tofa’s sojourn into politics started in 1976 when he was a councillor of Dawakin Tofa Local Government Council. In 1977, he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly.
During Nigeria’s Second Republic, Mr Tofa was at various times the secretary of the Kano branch of the then ruling party, NPN. He later became the party’s national financial secretary and was a national member of the Green Revolution National Committee.
During the Third Republic, he was part of the Liberal Movement which metamorphosed to the Liberal Convention when it was not registered as a political party. Mr Tofa joined NRC in 1990.
In 1993, when the Ibrahim Babangida administration introduced the Option A4 system, Mr Tofa was elected the presidential candidate of the NRC. During the party primaries, he defeated Pere Ajunwa, John Nwodo and Dalhatu Tafida to clinch the NRC ticket. At the time, his running mate in the election was Sylvester Ugoh, a former governor of the now-defunct central bank of Biafra. Both were members of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
Mr Tofa was also a businessman and an industrialist. He was chairman of International Petro-Energy Company (IPEC) and Abba Othman and Sons Ltd. He was also involved as a board member in Impex Ventures, Century Merchant Bank and General Metal Products Ltd.
Mr Tofa, based in Kano, is known for publicly airing his view on issues of national interest.
In February 2021, he published an article on PREMIUM TIMES titled: “The Need To Act Now To Stop the Ethnic Conflagration!”
“There is clearly a nefarious plan by the enemies of this potentially great country to initiate a violent crisis that may lead to its destruction,” he wrote in the article.
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