Sani Zangon Daura was

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

n Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and later Minister of Environment, in the cabinet of President

Olusegun Obasanjo Chief Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Ogunboye Aremu Obasanjo (; ; born 5 March 1937) is a Nigerian former army general, politician and statesman who served as Nigeria's head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as its president from 1999 to 200 ...

. He was dropped from Obasanjo's cabinet in a reshuffle on 30 January 2001.

Background

Sani Zangon Daura originates from the Daura Senatorial zone of

Katsina State Katsina State ( ; 𞤤𞤫𞤴𞤣𞤭 𞤳𞤢𞥁𞤭𞤲𞤢) is a state in the northwestern geopolitical zone of Nigeria. It is bordered to the west by Zamfara State, to the east by Kano and Jigawa states, and to the south by Kaduna St ...

. He graduated from the School for Arabic Studies in Kano. He was given a scholarship to attend the School for African and Oriental Studies, London, in 1961, but returned to Nigeria before completing the course and was admitted into the

University of Lagos The University of Lagos (UNILAG) is a Public university, public research university located in Lagos, Nigeria, which was founded in 1962. UNILAG is one of the education in Nigeria#First generation universities, first generation universities in ...

. During Nigerian Second Republic in 1979, he was a candidate of the

National Party of Nigeria The National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was the dominant political party in Nigeria during the Second Republic (1979–1983). History Formation The party's beginning could be traced to private and sometimes secret meetings among key Northern Nigeri ...

(NPN) primaries to run for governor of

Kaduna state Kaduna (, جىِهَر كَدُنا; مدينة كدونا; , ; ) is a States of Nigeria, state in the northwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The state capital is its namesake, the city of Kaduna (city), Kaduna, which was the List of Nigerian ...

, but lost to Alhaji Lawal Kaita. Kaita in turn, lost the election to the People's Redemption Party (PRP) candidate, Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa.

Cabinet positions

Appointed Minister of Agriculture in June 1999, Daura laid out a policy for the sector, which accounted at that time, for 38% of the Nigerian GDP. Elements included increasing production and productivity, agro-technology improvement,

poverty alleviation Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classi ...

, agro-industry development, export promotion and environmental protection. In November 2000, he was the Nigerian delegate to the UN Framework Convention on

Climate Change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

, held in the Netherlands. Daura was chairman of the

Group of 77 The Group of 77 (G77) at the United Nations (UN) is a coalition of developing country, developing countries, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations. T ...

(G77), a bloc of 133 developing nations and China. In a major speech at the meeting, he warned that poorer countries would not limit their greenhouse gas emissions unless rich countries lived up to their own promises under the

Kyoto Protocol The was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is oc ...

. Daura said that the US had caused a "plague of climate change" as harmful as the colonization of Africa. The summit failed to achieve any results.

Later career

Daura became a member of the Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), an influential Northern lobby group. In March 2006, he was among ACF leaders, who strongly opposed to allowing president Obasanjo to run for a third term in 2007. In December 2008, Daura received the Commander of the

Order of the Niger The Order of the Niger (OON) is the second highest Award, national award in Nigeria. It was instituted in 1963 and is junior to the Order of the Federal Republic, the highest order of merit in the country. Award The two highest honours, the Gr ...

(CON) award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daura, Sani Living people National Party of Nigeria politicians Federal ministers of Nigeria Commanders of the Order of the Niger Year of birth missing (living people) Members of the 8th National Assembly (Nigeria) Senators of the 10th National Assembly (Nigeria)