Mallam Ismaila Funtua, the founding managing director of Democrat Newspaper and former President of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), is dead.
Details of his death are somewhat sketchy, however, many persons have taken to social media to mourn the loss, including the Personal Assistant on New Media to President Buhari, Mr Bashir Ahmad.
Mr Ahmad took to his twitter handle, musing over death, using Funtua’s life as an example.
Mallam Funtua who at the time of his death was aged 78, was born in Funtua, Katsina State.
He is a pioneer student of the Federal Training Centre, Kaduna.
Funtua, who was the Minister of Water Resources in the defunct Second Republic, established the Democrat Newspapers during the military era in Nigeria.
He was also trained as an administrative officer at the Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria.
He was an administrator at Manchester University in the UK.
The late Funtua worked as the Katsina Native Authority as an Administrative Officer and later served in many ministries in the defunct Northern Region
Equally, the Kastina-born entrepreneur was a Manager of the United Nigerian Textile Company, Kaduna.