Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima on Sunday paid tribute to Alhaji Bamanga Muhammad Tukur, a former state governor, ex-ruling party chairman and prominent businessman, describing his death as a major loss for Nigeria and the wider African continent.
Tukur, popularly known by his traditional title Tafidan Adamawa, died in Abuja on Saturday at age 90, just days before his 91st birthday. He was buried later Sunday in his hometown of Yola, Adamawa State, in a funeral attended by businessman Aliko Dangote, Adamawa Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, a state senator and other dignitaries.
In a condolence statement, Shettima called Tukur a mentor and one of Nigeria’s foremost institution-builders, saying his passing was felt far beyond his home state. The vice president highlighted Tukur’s tenure leading the Nigerian Ports Authority starting in 1975, when he was brought in to clear a notorious backlog of cement-laden ships clogging the country’s ports — a crisis known as the “cement armada” — and credited him with expanding port infrastructure that shaped Nigeria’s maritime sector for decades afterward.
Shettima also pointed to Tukur’s continental legacy, noting his role founding the African Business Roundtable and chairing the NEPAD Business Group, where he championed intra-African trade years before those ideas took shape as the African Continental Free Trade Area. Tukur additionally served as governor of the old Gongola State — since split into Adamawa and Taraba states — before his tenure was cut short by a military takeover in 1983, and later chaired the Peoples Democratic Party and served as a government minister.
He is survived by two wives and 18 children.
