Yakubu Bako

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Yakubu Bako
Governor of Akwa Ibom State
In office
15 December 1993 –21 August 1996
Children7
Alma mater Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs (MPP, MPA)
Military service
BranchFlag of the Nigerian Army Headquarters.svg  Nigerian Army
Service years1967–1999
Rank Colonel
Conflict Nigerian Civil War

Colonel (retired) Yakubu Bako was governor of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria from December 1993 to August 1996 during the military regime of General Sani Abacha. [1]

Bako graduated from La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982. He served as a major in the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Iran after the Iran–Iraq War, which was in place from 1988 to 1991. [2] After being appointed Akwa Ibom administrator in December 1993, Bako developed infrastructure in the Bakassi area, later forcibly claimed by Cross River State. He built the first ever-State Liaison Office (Akwa Ibom House) in Abuja. Although a Muslim, he established Akwa Ibom State Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board. He was the first Governor to send 50 Christians to Jerusalem. He built the present state-of-the-art University of Uyo Teaching Hospital. He retrieved from the natives, the land being use as farmland and developed the present Akwa Ibom Le Meridien Golf Course. He was a member of President Buhari Transition Sub-Committee on Security from April to June 2015. He belongs to the All Progressives Party (APC). [3]

In December 1997 he was jailed for alleged complicity in a coup to overthrow Sani Abacha. [4] In March 1998 he was among 26 who had been charged during the Gen Diya led coup plot against Ababcha administration. He was charged and convicted under 'other offences' because his offences of receiving bribe from Alhaji Adamu Dankabo, and the importation of one pistol and 12 rounds of ammunitions in 1983 after his university education in the US, has nothing to do with Diya's coup. Coup plotting was a capital offence. [5] In March 1999 he was granted clemency and released. [6] He and others were pardoned by President Olusegun Obasanjo in September 2003 after reviewing his case of non-involvement in any coup plotting. [7]

References

  1. ↑ "Nigerian States". WorldStatesmen. Retrieved 9 May 2010.
  2. ↑ "Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes Fall 2006". La Follette School of Public Affairs. Retrieved 9 May 2010.
  3. ↑ Uduak Iniodu (23 July 2009). "Oil wells: 'Obasanjo tricked Cross River'". Nigerian Compass.
  4. ↑ "COUPS D'ETAT IN NIGERIA: HISTORY, SURVIVORS and VICTIMS". Vanguard. 13 March 1999. Retrieved 9 May 2010.
  5. ↑ "Nigeria: Further information on fear of torture or ill-treatment / legal concern / death penalty". Amnesty International. 13 March 1998. Retrieved 9 May 2010.
  6. ↑ "NIGERIA: Releases of political prisoners – questions remain about past". Amnesty International. Retrieved 9 May 2010.
  7. ↑ Josephine Lohor, Joseph Ushigiale (1 October 2003). "Buhari, IBB, 233 Others Honoured – Col. Bako, Yakassai, 27 others pardoned". ThisDay. Archived from the original on 10 February 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2010.


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