Presidential candidate of the Labour Party Peter Obi on Friday, July 8 unveiled Datti Baba-Ahmed as his running mate.
Labour Party national chairman Julius Abure supervised the unveiling at the party’s secretariat in Abuja.
Below are seven things one should know about Baba-Ahmed:
1. Baba-Ahmed, who hails from Zaria, Kaduna State, is one of the 33 children of his father, an Arab cattle trader, with roots in Mauritania.
2. He was born in 1975 and studied economics both at undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of Maiduguri.
3. Baba-Ahmed worked as a banking officer at First Bank of Nigeria Plc from July 1997 to December 1998 and then was appointed managing director of Baze Research and Data Services Ltd in July 1999 to January 2003, before venturing into politics.
4. He was elected a member of the House of Representatives in 2003. During his tenure, he bagged an MBA from the University of Wales, Cardiff, the same year he completed his PhD studies, earning the title of doctor of philosophy at the University of Westminster.
5. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared him winner of the 2011 senatorial election to represent Kaduna North in the Senate on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). The electoral tribunal, however, declared Baba-Ahmed was wrongly awarded victory and he left office in 2012.
6. Baba-Ahmed is the founder of Baze University, Abuja and Baba-Ahmed University, Kano.
7. In 2015, Baba-Ahmed was appointed chairman, board of trustees (BOT) of the National Youth Service Corps’ Hope Alive Foundation – which campaigns for post-service economic survival of corps members who suffered permanent disability during service.
