In 1952, Mallam Umaru Altine became the first elected Mayor of the Enugu Municipal Council. A post he held till 1958.
A Fulani cattle rearer from Sokoto, Mallam Altine, who was married to an Igbo woman, Esther Ozueh, was elected for two terms.
In his first term, he had run as an NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons) candidate but in the build-up to the elections for his second term, the NCNC asked him to step down for another candidate but he refused and was forced to resign from the NCNC.
Nevertheless, he ran as an independent candidate and defeated the NCNC candidate, D.T. Inyang, by 117 to 53 votes. In fact, in his ward, he was returned unopposed.
Thus, a Fulani man from Sifawa, in the then Sokoto Province, almost 700 miles from the Eastern Region, who had lived in Enugu for less than five years, became the first Mayor of the Capital of the Eastern Region.
As Mayor of Enugu, together with Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Premier of the Eastern Region, Altine hosted Queen Elizabeth II during Her Majesty’s official visit to Nigeria in February 1956.
Credit: HistoryVille
