Govern Kaduna State for the talakawa on the PRP programme — Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa

Total tracked

Kept

Partial / mixed

Broken

Kept

Partial / mixed

Broken

In progress

Governance

Govern Kaduna State for the talakawa on the PRP programme

Broken

The promise

To deliver the People's Redemption Party's radical programme — abolition of the community tax, free education and health, and land and welfare measures for peasants — after winning the 1979 Kaduna governorship.

Assessment

Balarabe Musa abolished the haraji community tax, but the NPN-controlled Kaduna State House of Assembly refused to confirm any of his commissioner nominees, leaving him without a cabinet for most of his 20 months in office. Little of the wider programme could be executed under that blockade.

Governance

Serve a full elected term

Broken

The promise

Implicit in his 1979 election as governor of Kaduna State on the PRP platform.

Assessment

In June 1981 the NPN majority in the state assembly impeached him — the first removal of a governor by impeachment in Nigeria's history — on grounds widely seen as partisan rather than proven misconduct. No successor from his party took over; the NPN's Lawal Kaita won the 1983 election. Balarabe Musa remained a leading figure of the Nigerian left until his death in 2020.