Musa Daggash

[1] Musa Daggash was born in about 1918 at Kirenowa, Marte local government area of Borno State to Jibrin Muhammad Al-amin and Habibata Jidda, he was of the Shuwa Arab ethnic stock.

[1] In 1950 Musa was nominated to attend a course at the imperial Forestry Institute (now the Department of Plant Sciences) University of Oxford.

[1] Having been a technical forester-trainee for two years after leaving college, Musa was promoted to the rank of Forest Assistant III on 1 April 1940 at the rate of £42 per annum.

Mallam Sheriff was less enthusiastic to allow his children to be enrolled in the Western-type school, Daggash, however felt that he would be doing disservice to his friend and his young ones to just leave them like that.

Musa decided to take the bull by the horn, he waited for an opportune moment when his friend was out of town, he took Mallam Sheriff's son Bunu and some other boys to Maiduguri Primary School and had them registered.

In February 1953 Alhaji Musa Daggash was invited by the Lieutenant-Governor of Northern Nigeria Sir Bryan Sharwood-smith, to accompany him to Maiduguri, in order to act as his interpreter.

The ad hoc visit was due to reports of large scale corruption that was taking place in the native authority administration.

[1] The Nigerianisation exercise of 1959 was in preparation for independence, Nigerians were upgraded to important positions in the civil service, so they could take over from the departing expatriate staff.

[1] When Daggash was transferred to the Ministry of Mines and power, his Minister was Alhaji Maitama Sule (Dan Masanin Kano).

The Minister, Alhaji Maitama Sule was quoted to have said that "the dedication, selfless service and honesty of Alhaji Musa Daggash, Chief Menshack O. Feyide, Mr Ezekiel Ifaturoti and Mr Gaskell (British) contributed tremendously in the foundation of Nigeria's Petroleum Industry as we know it today."

On Saturday 15 January 1966 Musa Daggash having finished his morning routine and oblivious of the events that had taken place in the early hours of the day, he headed for his office in order to continue working on some files.

Upon hearing this Gen. Ironsi burst into laughter and told Daggash in Hausa "Ka tafi gida ba aiki" (go home, there is no work).

[1] After the then head of State was assassinated during the Ibadan Mutiny on 29 July 1966 and the apparent inability and hesitation of Brigadier Ogundipe (the next most senior military officer) to assume the mantle of leadership, everything revolved around the Ministry of Defence and inevitably around Daggash as the Permanent Secretary.

[1][3] Daggash's position in the Ministry of Defence gave him some authority and access, which no civil servant had at that critical period in history.

It was because of this critical role assumed by Daggash during this period that Mr. H.A Ejueyitchie (later Secretary to the Federal Military Government) jokingly used to say "Musa was Head of State for three days.

The civil servants managed to explain to the military officers how counter-productive and futile their propositions were, so after three days of extensive talks the soldiers agreed to drop their plans to secede and Lt.