Tambuwal’s spokesman Imam dies at 41

Malam Imam Imam, spokesman of Sokoto State governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, died yesterday at the Nizamiye Hospital, Abuja, after a brief illness. Aged 41, he was buried at the Gudu Cemetery after funeral prayers were held at the Annur Mosque, in Wuse 2.

Present at the funeral prayers were Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Governor Tambuwal, many senators, members of the House of Reps, and a former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, among many others.

The prayers were led by the Secretary General of the Jama’atul Nasirul Islam (JNI), Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu.

Imam was a journalist who began his career with the Millennium Newspapers and later joined the New Nigerian Newspapers as a sports reporter and worked for several years before becoming the paper’s sports editor.

He was a graduate of Mass Communication from the Kaduna Polytechnic where he was the president of the Mass Communication Students Association (MACOSA) between 2003 and 2004. Imam later joined the ThisDay Newspapers and was posted to Zamfara State as Chief Correspondent.

ThisDay management later appointed him as the Kaduna Bureau Chief to cover the entire Northwest zone. He later became the newspaper’s Group Political Editor in Lagos.

Following Tambuwal’s emergence as speaker of the House of Reps in 2011, Imam was appointed as his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, a position he held till June 2015.

Tambuwal retained Imam as his spokesman after becoming the Sokoto State governor in 2015. Imam, an indigene of Gassol Local Government Area of Taraba State, left behind his mother, two wives and four children.