Ex-CJN, Dahiru Musdapher, dies at 75

The former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Dahiru Musdapher has died in the early hours of Tuesday at the age of 75 years.Younger brother of the former Chief Justice, Muneer Musdapher and some family members broke the news on social media but didn’t reveal the cause of his death.

The jurist retired from bench five years ago on attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Almost a year to his retirement, he was appointed CJN by then President Goodluck Jonathan, upon the exit of Justice Alysious Katsina-Alu.

Musdapher was educated at the Ahmadu Bello University and the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.

He was called to the Nigerian bar in 1968 and began his legal practice as one of the early private legal practitioners in northern Nigeria.

Dahiru Musdapher was born a member of the Bani Ya’muusa clan in Babura Town in Babura, a local government area in the north of Jigawa State.

The progenitor of the clan (his lordship’s great-grandfather), Goni Ya’Musa, was a Fulani scholar, a renowned and respected Islamic jurist and teacher who migrated from the Kanem Bornu Empire in the mid-1800s and pursued a lifelong mission of teaching and Islamic missionary work. The great-grandfather settled in Babura Town, in Jigawa State.

Musdapher’s father, Mallam Musdapher Musa – also a renowned Islamic scholar – served as a principal advisor to several District Heads across the Kano Native Authority during the colonial era, for decades before he was eventually enthroned as the District Head of Babura L.G.A. Mallam Musdaher’s father was the first headmaster of the first primary school in Babura. He died in 1993 as the head of a large and respected family leaving behind over 300 children, grandchildren and great-grand children and his death, Justice Musdapher was the head of his family.