Ishaya Audu
Ishaya Sha'aibu Audu was a Nigerian doctor, professor, and politician. A Hausa, Christian, he served as minister of external affairs from 1979 to 1983 under Shehu Shagari.
Early life, education, and career
Audu was born on 1 March 1927, in Anchau, a village near Zaria, Kaduna State, to Bulus Audu. Bulus was a farmer-trader who was one of the leading scholars of the Isawa, a radical Islamic sect, in the early 20th century. He was also one of the earliest Christian converts in Northern Nigeria.Initially educated at St. Bartholomew's School in Wusasa, he moved to Yaba Higher College in Lagos and then to University College, Ibadan in 1948. In 1951, he left for the University of London in England, where he stayed until 1954. In 1955, he studied at the University of Liverpool. It was in 1958 that he married his wife, Victoria, with whom he would father six children.
Audu lectured in Internal Medicine at the University of Lagos in 1962 and was promoted to the position of Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University in 1966. He had been the personal physician of Ahmadu Bello whom the university is named after. He also travelled to the United States where he was employed as an associate research professor at the University of Rochester, New York, and wrapped up his education at the Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, from 1964 until 1968. Ishaya Audu was the vice presidential candidate of the Nigerian People's Party which had Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe as its presidential candidate in the 1979 and 1983 presidential Elections.