Alhaji Hassan Lemu, the Principal Private Secretary to the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardaunan Sokoto is dead.
Lemu died about 8: 45 pm yesterday at the General Hospital Minna from rehydration at the age of 95.
One of his children, Malam Salihu Hassan Lemu, said the deceased who had shown signs of severe weakness was taken to the General Hospital last week and was on medication until his demise.
The late Sardauna’s aide joined the public service as Third Class Clerk at the Northern Nigeria Secretariat in February 1949.
He worked in different cadres of the civil service in Nigeria and London. He was first posted to the late Premier’s office, Kaduna as private secretary on his return from secondment to the office of the Commissioner for Northern Nigeria in the United Kingdom as Executive Officer (Accounts) in 1956.
He was appointed as Assistant District Office in December 1956 and posted to Borno Province from where he returned to London to the office of the Commissioner for Northern Nigeria in the United Kingdom again as Assistant Secretary in May 1957.
On his return to Nigeria in July 1960, he was reposted to the late Premier’s office as acting Principal Private Secretary and later appointed acting permanent secretary in the ministry of justice in 1961.
He was in Borno as acting Provincial Secretary before he was reposted to the Premier’s office as Principal Private Secretary from January, 1964 to January, 1966.
He exited the civil service as permanent secretary ministry of finance, Sokoto in September 1974.
It had been reported that the federal government had cleared his pension six years after it was suspended. The payment of the pension itself followed an earlier report of the suspension of the pension.
According to the family, the funeral prayers would take place at the Minna central mosque at 2.pm today, while the interment would follow immediately at the Kpakungu cemetery.
Alhaji Lemu left behind 24 surviving children and many grandchildren.