The first democratically elected governor of Adamawa State, Saleh Michika, has died after a protracted illness and days in coma.
He passed away Saturday night at the Federal Medical Centre, Yola.
Macaulay Hunohashi, the special adviser on media to Governor Muhammadu Bindow, confirmed the death in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola on Sunday.
He said the governor, who visited Michika at the hospital on Saturday, was later in the night called to be informed of the death.
Michika’s son, Hafiz Saleh, had earlier complained that his father had been in coma for several days.
His father, he claimed, had been lamenting to the authorities of the state for over two months now that he needed to travel abroad for medical check-up, but they did not oblige him, wondering why is it now that he is in a coma they want to move him.
“The doctors say he cannot be moved until he is stable. For three days now, he has been in a coma and there is nothing we can do but to pray; if they had allowed him to seek medical check-up, this would not have happened,” the son said.
“Do you know that my father outside the numerous cars he has the government was only able to provide him with one car as part of his entitlements? They even denied him of his pension as the first executive governor of Adamawa State.
“I have lost hope,” he lamented
Born in 1941 in Michika, headquarters of the Michika Local Government Area, the deceased was governor from January 2, 1992 to November 17, 1993 following the creation of Adamawa out of the then Gongola.
He was elected on the platform of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC).
Michika worked with the British Bank of West Africa and John Holt before joining the politics.
He had four wives, 38 children – 17 boys and 21 girls – 99 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
