Amb. Dr Maitama Sule (CFR) – Dan Macanin Kano
Yusuf Maitama Sule is a Nigerian politician, intellectual, acclaimed orator and diplomat.
Born in 1929, he was a school teacher in his early career, but was elected in 1954 to the Federal House of Representatives.
In 1958 he became the Kano Native Authority’s Chief Information Officer and in 1959 the Federal Minister of Mines and Power, serving until the military delegation to the Addis Ababa Conference of Independent African States in 1960 and was also a member of the first Nigerian delegation to the United Nations the same year.
In 1967, he became Commissioner for Local Government, then moved to the Ministry of Forestry, Co-operatives and Community Development and finally to that of information. In 1976, he became the Federal Commissioner of public complaints, a position that made him the nation’s pioneer ombudsman.
In early 1979, he was a presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria but lost to Shehu Shagari. He was appointed Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. While at the UN, he was chairman of the United Nations Committee against Apartheid. After the re-election of President Shagari in 1983, Maitama Sule was made the Minister for National Guidance, a portfolio designed to assist the President in tackling corruption.
