Tofa, MKO Abiola's opponent, dies at 74

Echoes of the 12th June 1993 presidential election reverberated as the last of the two contestants died in the early hours of Monday after what family sourced described as "protracted illness".

Alhaji Bashir Othman Tofa died at age 74.

Described by foremost journalist Peter Enahoro as "Nigeria's most famous nobody", Tofa emerged virtually from the blues to be the presidential candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) and ran against a well known entrepreneur, Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Abiola died in controversial circumstances on 7th July 1998, while in detention agitating for his presidential mandate.

Tofa, born of Kano of Kanuri heritage, could not measure up to par with Abiola in Kano State. Although the election was annulled by the Ibrahim Babangida military regime while the results were being announced, unofficial results gave the majority votes (52.28 per cent) in Kano State.

Overall, Abiola pulled 58.36 per cent votes across the country.

“Alhaji Bashir Tofa died after being admitted in hospital for some time", one of the deceased’s relations, Alhaji Muhammad, said.

Tofa's first taste of politics dated back to 1976 when he won a councillorship seat in the Dawakin Tofa Local Government Council

A year later, he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly, which prepared the constitutional grounds for the Second Republic. 

In the Republic, Tofa was at various times the Secretary of the Kano branch of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). He later became the party’s National Fnancial Secretary and also a national member of the Green Revolution National Committee.

In the buildup to the aborted Third Republic, Tofa was in the Liberal Movement which metamorphosed to Liberal Convention when it was not registered as a political party, He joined NRC in 1990. In 1993, when the Babangida administration introduced the Option A4 system, Tofa was elected the presidential candidate representing Kano.

During the party primaries, he won the NRC presidential ticket defeating strong horses like Pere Ajunwa, Joe Nwodo and Dalhatu Tafida. At the time, he was an ally of Halilu Akilu, the security chief to Babangida. His running mate in the election was Sylvester Ugoh, former Governor of the now-defunct Central Bank of Biafra. Both were members of the defunct NPN.

Tofa was also a businessman, an oil trader and an industrialist. He was chairman of International Petrol-Energy Company and Abba Othman and Sons Limited.