In the 1950s, Ibrahim Gashash was among a select few of Nigerian traders that acquired licenses to trade in commodities, especially peanuts and cotton.

[1] The high barrier of entry towards acquisition of the license among indigenous traders resulted in a few class of merchant elite in Kano, with trade in the ancient city dominated by Levantine businessmen.

By the 1950s, Gashash had emerged as a financier of the Northern People's Congress and was later made minister for Land and Survey.

In 1952, Gashash became the regional president of the Northern People's Congress, after an emergency convention had been called due to a large proportion of executive party leaders not being legislators or members of the Northern Regional Assembly, a dangerous mistake in a parliamentary system of government.

[2] In 1952, a working committee later joined by Musa Gashash, was set up to create the organizational structures of the nascent political organization.