Dankwmbo was born on the 4 April 1962 at Gombe. He graduated from Ahmadu Bello University in 1985 with a degree in Accounting. He obtained a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Lagos in 1992 and a PhD in Accounting from Igbinedion University. He began his career with Coopers & Lybrand in 1985, and worked at the Central Bank of Nigeria from 1988 to 1999. He was then appointed Accountant General of Gombe State, holding this position until 2005. He was appointed Accountant – General of the Federation on 20 April 2005. He held this office until he resigned to start his campaign for election as Governor of Gombe State January 2011. I have not met him neither do I know him from Adam. How did Dankwambo do it? He is an accomplished accountant and a finance expert quite alright. But his genius lay in his commitment to his people and creating the greatest good for the greatest number. “The survival of state governments in Nigeria, is a function of their ability to plan and execute projects and programs effectively and efficiently, and transparency and accountability are the functional media for achieving this.” To appreciate what Dankwambo has done, it is important to know the background against which he has worked. Gombe State was 36th in GDP (PPP) in 2010. In 2011, the new governor inherited a population that was 8.5% poorer than when his predecessor took over in 2003. He inherited a population in which only 34.6% attained some level of Education as follows: Nursery School – 1%, Primary School – 21.1%, Secondary School – 9.9% and post-secondary School – 3.1%. Infant Mortality Rate was 120.9/100 . Under 5 mortality rate was 105.6/1000. Low birth weight was 24/1000 live births. Maternal Mortality was 1,433.1/100,000. According to available records, Dankwambo took the reins when Gombe State had a heavy, unfortified debt burden, dwindling revenues, complete disregard for regulations and due process in the management of the state and total planlessness. Of course, there was hardly any other source of revenue accruing to the State than the Federal Allocation and pay as you earn (P.A.Y.E) deductible from the salaries and allowances of employees. Having been the Accountant General of the Federation, arguably the best Nigeria has ever had, Dankwambo set to work. According to him, “accountability and transparency are the main ingredients for successful public finance management” for the following reasons: They provide opportunity for public participation in governance while making performance accountable as responsibilities and quality of service are defined and made public. They establish reference points for quality assurance to the public and represent yardsticks for performance evaluation and measurement. They also provide opportunities for improving public expenditure efficiency and effectiveness, as well as internal resource mobilization. The man has always been committed to reducing uncertainty and risks; and ensuring inclusive, sustainable development “The ability of any government to fulfill its constitutional duties depends on its capacity to generate sufficient funds (revenue) needed to deliver growth and development (expenditure) for its populace.” “Both activities – generating internal revenues and expending resources – are bound by rules and regulations that aid economic growth and development, the most important of which are transparency and accountability.” “The survival of states is therefore dependent on their ability to formulate and implement policies and procedures that guide their delivery of projects and programs.” After winning election in 2011, Dankwambo commenced a consultative planning process by convoking all the eminent sons and daughters of Gombe to a series of committee sessions during which they looked at all the sectors of the economy and made recommendations on how the state should be governed in the next 10 years and beyond. This planning effort looked at 12 sectors of the economy. The 12-sector based committees evolved a Master Plan, which was translated into an official Action Plan, costed and broken down into implementable chunks for application by Gombe state’s ministries, departments and agencies. The capital components of the Action Plan have been consistently incorporated into the state’s annual budgets for implementation and have been the guiding tool for the significant infrastructural investments Gombe has attained since 2011. He then embarked on the establishment of guiding norms by domesticating the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was passed into law in April 2012 in an attempt to institutionalize norms that would guide accountability and transparency in governance. Accordingly, The fiscal responsibility law changed the structure of Gombe’s budgeting process by making it more resource realistic, limiting expenditure pattern to established revenue profile each year, among many other gains. No doubt, Ibrahim Hassan has changed the content of governace, using his experience as an accomplished accountant and his passion for the people. Gombe State was one of the earliest state governments to embrace international financial reporting format as prescribed by the Federation Account Allocation Committee. Thereby, increasing the transparency of budgetary process by appropriately codifying and coding all revenue and expenditure heads and subheads in accordance with the National Chat of Accounts. This made the budgetary sub-system easily interoperable with other automated systems, sub-systems and platforms in public finance management such as those for Debt Management, Centralized Internally Generated Revenue, Payroll and Treasury Management, Vendor and Contract Management and so on. In addition to this, the adoption of IPSAS mandated transparent capital expenditure planning and execution. Each item of CAPEX must be appropriately codified by the objectives for its creation (the SDGs objective it is meant to serve), its specific location, the source of its funding, and the functionality it is meant to provide. Under Dankwambo, Gombe State domesticated the Pensions Reform Act of the Federal Government in order to appropriately address issues concerning retirement benefits and its offsetting impact on regular state government cash flows. The government’s attempt at putting transparent policies and accountable process has thus helped Dankwambo to achieve much more with less. The drive to raise additional revenue especially in a rural state like Gombe State has been very challenging. In Dankwambo’s estimation, the state needs revenue-generating assets to garner more revenues for government, but the irony is that he also needs significant revenues to build those revenue-generating assets! This is where the fertile imagination of a leader comes into play and where long-term vision takes precedence over the convenience of the moment. Having realized the need for the state to reduce dependence on Federal allocation early at the advent of his administration, Dankwambo included some revenue-generating assets as part of his government’s portfolio of physical infrastructure, which included: a brand new modern International Conference Center, which along with some earlier investments the government made in hotels in Gombe, position Gombe as a conferencing hub for the North-east region. And this is just one of many visionary investments that have made Gombe stand out among all the states in Nigeria. “The provision of these assets by government was necessary because the state is located in the Northeastern region of Nigeria and is neighboring the states that were devastated by the Boko Haram terror. This made the State less attractive to investors at the time in spite of its relative safety in the region. In order to increase the role of private sector participation and to protect the assets from red-tape and undue bureaucracy, these assets are being consolidated, along with others, for management by the private sector under a capital market arrangement that enables the posting of corporate bonds to raise sufficient funds to build even more revenue-generating assets for the State.” But Dankwambo’s visionary leadership is further sign-posted by his commitment to accountability and transparency. As part of his objective of achieving more with less while increase resource mobilization efforts, his government recently expressed interest to participate in a World Bank’s multi-state performance-based operation in Nigeria aimed at strengthening fiscal performance and sustainability at the subnational level. The program is tagged: State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) Program.
When Governor Dankwambo donated his family house for a primary school, it was not only his own way of giving back, but also a genuine show of empathy towards the younger generation to get access to functional education.
As a leader, Dr. Ibrahim Dankwambo’s heart strikes a rhythm with those of the people; he feels what they feel and does what he can to lift up every soul from despondency to hope and happiness.
Dankwambo is a technocrat in the true sense of the word. During his civil service career, he was a member, CBN Board of Directors; President/Chairman, Accountants-General and Auditors-General Forum of West Africa; Chairman, ECOWAS Audit Committee; Board Member, Extractive Industries Transparency International, etc. As Accountant-General of the Federation he is remembered for the introduction of many transparency-inspired reforms, such as Treasury Single Account, E-payment and Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS), Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) among others.
There is a big side to the enthralling Dankwambo persona. His temperament disposes him to resonant leadership style. Experts believe that a leader’s emotional states and actions affect how the people they lead will feel and perform. He displays a friendly mood all the time and this has sort of shown in the achievements he has recorded in Gombe despite very paltry fiscal accruals.
The first step he took after mounting the saddle as governor did much to showcase his temperament and primal leadership disposition. He retained almost all the aides of his predecessor and focused on the target of service for the people. This way, he built optimism and inspired on his aides to work as a team for the benefit of the people.
A resonant leader is often known by the level of his emotional state, because since everybody most often watches the leader, his disposition becomes contagious. And standing on the solid ground of honesty and integrity, his inner circle cannot help but reflect the charisma their leader exudes.
As Dr. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo turns 56 years, it is obvious that like good wine, he is getting better with age. Nigerians should do well to see this budding institution as a veritable source to learn some useful lessons in good leadership and inter-personal relations.
Since the true test of a leader is his influence, Dankwambo’s abiding good nature and goodwill towards all is no doubt refining leadership and citizenship across Nigeria. Like I said, I have not met him, neither been to Gombe State, I’m from the South East and not from the North, lets look at the political terrain, if Atiku wins he may likely do well, perhaps there might still be complains from the citizenry but not as much as the present administration. I can assured you that if the present Governor of Gombe State Dr. Ibrahim Dankwambo wins the dilapidated economy situation will be revived back even more better, the economy of the country will bounce back even much more better, there will be little or no complain from the citizenry. So I have no doubt to recommend him to You all as the next President comes 2019.
Thank You My Regards

As far as he is not lifeless..