Ibrahim Damcida

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Ibrahim Maina Damcida (1933–2012) was a Nigerian civil servant who rose to the top levels of government service. He served as a Permanent Secretary in several ministries, including Trade and Defense, and retired in the mid-1970s after a change in government. He was later involved in business and sat on the boards of several companies.

Damcida was born in Biu, Borno State, into a royal family. His father was Yerima Damcida, and his grandfather was Mai of Biu. He was a prince of the Biu Emirate. He began school in Biu and later attended Maiduguri Middle School, Kaduna College, and Barewa College, finishing in 1950. He studied accounting at Westminster College in London (1954–1956) and then at Northwestern Polytechnic London (1956–1958).

He started his career at John Holt Plc as a trainee manager and later trained as an accountant. In 1959 he moved to work with the regional government, and in 1962 he joined the federal civil service as an under-secretary in the Ministry of Industries. He then served as Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministries of Commerce and Industries (1962–1965) and Finance (1965–1966). He became Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Trade in 1966 and later moved to the Ministry of Defense as Permanent Secretary in 1971, a post he held until his retirement a few years later.

In 1965–1968 he studied at the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and remained a fellow after his retirement. Damcida helped establish and fund NICON, a national insurance company, in 1968. He was part of a group of highly regarded civil servants nicknamed the "super Permanent Secretaries" by a newspaper editor, a label that came after the civil war era.

During the 1970s he was involved in a large cement import program for the defense ministry, which aimed to supply cement for military construction but led to congestion at Lagos ports and demurrage charges.

After leaving the civil service, Damcida returned to the private sector. He helped build businesses across banking, telecoms, oil and gas, manufacturing, and real estate, and he served on the boards of several firms and organizations. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) and a patron of various charitable groups.

Damcida lived a quiet, principled life. He had one wife, Halima, and six children: Mustapha, Ahmad, Aliyu, Ismail, Umar, and Habiba. He is remembered as a skilled technocrat with a strong sense of integrity, entrepreneurship, and service to Nigeria. He died in 2012 in the Dana Air crash in Lagos.