Alhaji Shehu Shagari

Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari (1925–2018), a schoolteacher from Sokoto, was Federal Commissioner for Finance under Gowon and won the NPN's presidential primary for the 1979 election. He defeated Awolowo (UPN), Azikiwe (NPP), Aminu Kano (PRP) and Ibrahim Waziri (GNPP) in an election the Supreme Court ultimately decided on the famously contested 'two-thirds of nineteen states' question (Awolowo v. Shagari, 1979).

His administration began the Federal Capital construction at Abuja, launched the Green Revolution agricultural programme, and presided over the largest single forced expulsion in modern Nigerian history — the January 1983 'Ghana Must Go' expulsion of an estimated 2 million West African migrants (predominantly Ghanaian) as the oil-price crash pushed unemployment up. He won a disputed re-election in August 1983 and was overthrown on the night of 31 December 1983 by Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon. Shagari was detained until 1986, then released; he received the GCFR in 1999.