Namadi Sambo

Vice President

Place of Birth: Zaria

Education: Government Secondary School (now Alhuda-Huda College), 1967-71; BSc and MSc, Architecture, Ahmadu Bello University, 1973-78.

Career: Bauchi State Urban Development Board, 1979; Kaduna State Commissioner of Agriculture, 1986; Commissioner for Works, Transport and Housing, 1988; Governor, Kaduna State, 2007-10; Vice President of Nigeria, 2010 to date..

Commentary: Sambo became Kaduna State Governor in 2007, after a run off with Senator Isaiah Balat, the favorite to win the election and one of the five founders of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna. Sambo had the support of Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, the previous Kaduna State Governor, who, despite a close political relationship with Balat, preferred Sambo, a fellow Muslim.

Sambo had not even been a PDP member six months earlier, and after his victory had to be prompted to remember the party slogan. Many were resentful of Sambo's election (especially in Balat’s Southern Kaduna) and felt he was Makarfi's stooge and a beneficiary of an act of religious bigotry.