Influential Second Republic Minister of Transport, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, is dead. He reportedly died this morning in the United Kingdom.

Dikko, who became infamous when he was reported as saying that things were not as hard as painted because Nigerians were not yet eating from the dustbin, was an elder of Nigeria’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as at the time of his death.

His last known assignment was to chair the disciplinary committee that tried renegade party chiefs who eventually left on November 26 last year to join the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

Born in 1936 in Wamba, Kaduna State, Dikko was the campaign manager for the successful presidential campaign of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) candidate, Alhaji Shehu Shagari,in 1979.

Following the military coup of December 31, 1983, Dikko fled abroad. On July 5, 1984, he was found drugged in a crate at Stansted Airport, UK, that was being claimed as Diplomatic Baggage, an apparent victim of a government sanctioned kidnapping. The crate’s destination was Lagos.

•Photo shows late Umaru Dikko.