[5][6][7] Alhaji Abubakar Ladan was born in Kwarbai, Zaria city, Kaduna, in colonial Northern Nigeria.
Alhaji Abubakar Ladan's interest in poetry had been sparked by the songs of his fellow countrymen, Sa'adu Zungur and Mu'azu Hadeja, and the Sudanese Arab singer, Abdel Karim al Kabli.
[2] Around 1970, Abubakar Ladan recorded a sung rendition of Mu'azu Hadeja's famous poem Tutocin Shaihu da Waninsu ("The Banners of the Sheikh and others").
[8] The formation in 1963 of Organization of African Unity prompted Malam Abubakar Ladan to compose his famous poems in Hausa.
His poems examined the common experience of the countries he visited, the emergence of African nation states from colonialism, and the heroes driving the independence movements in the 1960s.