Muttaqa Rabe Darma, served as Commissioner for Women Affairs and later Works and Rural Development under the administration of the late President Umoru Musa Yar’Adua when he was governor of Katsina State.
Darma gained national recognition when he was appointed as the Executive Secretary of Petroleum Trust Development Fund, PTDF. He was one of the founding members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, but later switched to the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, led by Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso. There, he ran for governorship as the running mate to Nura Khalil in 2023.
During an interview with The Vanguard, Darma talked about the late President Unoru Musa Yar’Adua’s personality, his final days in office when he was critically ill, leading to the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity to enable his then deputy, President Goodluck Jonathan, to succeed him.
When Rabe Darma was asked what he learnt from his late principal, he said he learnt a lot from him.
He said, “Yar’Adua was God-sent to Nigeria. I was a Commissioner under him when he was a governor. I was Executive Secretary for PTDF still under his government.
My house is bigger five times than Yar’Adua house. Yar’Adua humility is incomparable to anybody’s in this country. Yar’ Adua had only two (landed) properties.”
Further talking, he said, “The first one was here in Katsina, which he built from the loan he got from former Habib Bank in 1985. The second is in Kaduna, which was a gift from his late elder brother, General Shehu Musa.
At a time, he would tell us that if you acquire all things you are planning to get, would you take them to your grave? He was never materialistic.”….Seē _ Morē