Ahmadu Bello

Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello (born June 12, 1909 in Rabbah, Nigeria ; † January 15, 1966 ) was a descendant of Usman Dan Fodio Sardauna (lord of the bodyguard) of Sokoto and a Nigerian politician .

Sir Ahmadu Bello initially worked as a teacher and later became head of the Sokoto Native Authority , Sokoto's colonial self-government, under British sovereignty. In 1949, together with Tafawa Balewa , he founded the People's Congress (NPC), a conservative party which he led alone from 1951. At the same time he was leader of the Qadiriyya order.

In 1954, Bello was appointed Prime Minister of Northern Nigeria. From this position he founded the Jamāʿat Nasr al-Islam in Kaduna , an organization that was primarily directed against Christian proselytizing . After his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1956, he developed close relationships with politicians in other Islamic states and worked towards the establishment of a Commonwealth of Islamic States . In 1962 he and his rival, the Tijani Sufi Ibrahim Baye Niass , became a founding member of the Islamic World League in Mecca. In Nigeria itself, together with the NPC, he undertook large-scale conversion campaigns between 1964 and 1965 in order to convert as many people as possible (animists, but also Christians) to Islam.

In January 1966, Bello was murdered in a military coup .

supporting documents

1. ↑ See Reinhard Schulze: Islamic Internationalism in the 20th Century. Research on the history of the Islamic World League. Leiden 1990, p. 197.
2. ↑ See Reynolds 170.
3. ↑ See Schulze 196f.
4. ↑ See Reynolds 163.

literature

• Jonathan T. Reynolds: The Time of Politics (Zamanin Siyasa). Islam and the Politics of Legitimacy in Northern Nigeria 1950-1966 . San Francisco et al. a. 1999. pp. 162-175.
• Sir Alhaji Ahmadu Bello in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)