Writer and founding member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Labo Yari is dead.
He was 83 years old.
His eldest son Haruna Labo-Yari said on Saturday that his father died at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Katsina, following a protracted illness.
Yari was of the longest-ever serving members of the ANA board of trustees.
His 1978 classic Climate of Corruption was the first novel in the English language to be published in Northern Nigeria.
Among his many other published works are A House in the Dark a collection of short stories published in 1985, Man of the Moment a novel published in 1992, A Day without Cockcrow a collection of short stories published in 1995 and a 2007 biography of the 47th Emir of Katsina Muhammad Dikko.
He was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Governor Nasir El-Rufai at the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival (Kabafest) in 2017.
Labo Yari is survived by two sons and five daughters among other descendants.
He will be buried according to Islamic rites at his residence in Katsina this afternoon.
