Hamza Rafindadi Zayyad
Encyclopedia
Hamza Rafindadi Zayyad was the former head of the Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

. The Committee was designed to strengthen government's control of the direction of the country's then nascent privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...

 exercise.

Alhaji Rafindadi was one of the few individuals who had a visible and important presence in the early socio-political institutions of Northern Nigeria and Nigeria.

Family and Early Life

Hamza Zayyad was born on 1937 in Katsina State
Katsina State
Katsina State is a state in northern Nigeria. Its capital is Katsina, and its governor is Ibrahim Shema, a member of the People's Democratic Party...

. His grandfather was once the Waziri of Katsina
Katsina
Katsina is a city , and a Local Government Area in northern Nigeria, and is the capital of Katsina State. Katsina is located some 160 miles east of the city of Sokoto, and 84 miles northwest of Kano, close to the border with Niger. As of 2007, Katsina's estimated population was 459,022...

 (an advisory role), a position the grandson later held. He studied at Barewa College
Barewa College
Barewa College is a college in Zaria, Kaduna State, northern Nigeria. Founded in 1922 by British Governor General Hugh Clifford, it was originally known as "Katsina College." It switched its name to "Kaduna College" in 1938 and then "Government College, Zaria" in 1949 before settling on "Barewa...

, Zaria
Zaria
Zaria may refer to:*Zaria, a city in Kaduna State, Nigeria*Zaria , or Zoria, the Slavic goddess of beauty*Countess Zaria of Orange-Nassau, Jonkvrouwe van Amsberg, a member of the Dutch royal family...

, an elite college for Northern Nigeria's academic achievers. From Barewa College, he took a brief but burgeoning personal path and joined Barclay
Barclay
-People:* Barclay , people with the surname Barclay* Clan BarclayFictional* Andy Barclay, the protagonist in the first three films of the Child's Play series* Reginald Barclay, character in Star Trek: The Next Generation-Business:...

's bank. After a few years at the bank, he continued his academic pursuit, studying accounting at Kumasi
Kumasi
Kumasi is a city in southern central Ghana's Ashanti region. It is located near Lake Bosomtwe, in the Rain Forest Region about northwest of Accra. Kumasi is approximately north of the Equator and north of the Gulf of Guinea...

 between 1958 and 1960. He later left the shores of Africa and went to Leeds College and the University at Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. He is mentor of the competitive former Nigerian Minister, Nasir EL-Rufai

Professional career

As one of the few Nigerians with a post-graduate degree and coupled with a strong potential for positive influence in the post colonial period, Alhaji Zayyad Hamza Rafindadi's post-graduate career was fertile. Rafindadi started working at the Ministry of Finance, Northern Nigeria, in 1963, and later rose in the field of finance to become the Bursar of Ahmadu Bello University
Ahmadu Bello University
Ahmadu Bello University is the largest university in Nigeria and second largest in Africa, second only to Cairo University, Egypt. It is situated in Zaria. It was founded on October 4, 1962 as the University of Northern Nigeria....

 at Zaria. Later on, his professional success continued when he was appointed the Managing Director of the New Nigeria Development Company from 1976-1981, a position that gave him the avenue to know and befriend leaders from Northern Nigeria such as Adamu Ciroma
Adamu Ciroma
Adamu Ciroma is a Nigerian politician and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He is currently a member of the People's Democratic Party.-Second Republic career:...

, but importantly, as the leader of one if not the largest firm in Northern Nigeria, he was in a position to impact or direct the course of socio-economic currents in the region.

In 1986, after a downward turn in oil prices from its peak during the aftermath of the Iran crisis
Iran crisis
Iran crisis may refer to*Iran crisis of 1946*Iran hostage crisis*2009 Iranian election protests...

, Nigeria's government revenue began to dwindle, and it began selling some government assets. The Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization was created as a medium of setting the government's privatization agenda. Hamza Rafindadi Zayyad was then appointed the committee's first director. Today, the agency as evolved to become the Bureau of Public enterprises; one of the lasting non-ministerial government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 institutions in Nigeria's vacillating public agencies.

Though, they may be questions about his captaincy of the privatization program and his relationship with potentially corrupt elites in Nigeria including sale of assets to potential crooks. However, the agency was partly created to set the government's agenda and the rise of money bags in Nigeria was a result of the oil boom and subsequent administrations courting elites in the country.

External links

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