Military officer, politician and businessman. Chief of Staff under General Obasanjo's military government which handed power to an elected civilian government. Yar-Adua then entered politics and built substantial support in elections until General Abacha seized power in 1993. He was elected as a delegate to a National Constitutional Conference in 1994, but in that year was arrested and sentenced to death by a military tribunal. Although the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, he died in prison in 1997.