Shamsuddeen Usman
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Shamsuddeen Usman (born 18 September 1949 in Garangamawa area of Kano, Nigeria) is the Minister of National Planning, Chairman of the Steering Committee on Nigeria Vision 2020 and immediate past Finance Minister of Nigeria. He is an Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and a Member of the Federal Executive Council, National Economic Council and the Economic Management Team.
Dr Usman was the first Nigerian Minister to publicly declare his assets before assuming office as a public officer, an act considered as a sign of accountability and transparency in a country noted for its high levels of corruption.


Education & Personal Life
Shamsuddeen Usman was born to a family living in Warure Quarters of Kano State.
His Father, an Islamic scholar, died when he was about six years old.
He began his education at Dandago Primary School. After a secondary school education at the prestigious Government College Keffi and King's College, Lagos, he gained a BSc. in Economics from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. He later won a National scholarship to study for his MSc. and PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science[1] between 1977-1980. During his first two years at the London School of Economics[2], he served as a teaching assistant for the final year class in Public Finance.
Work Life
From 1974-1976, Usman worked as the Planning Officer for the Kano State Ministry of Economic Planning. He taught Economic Analysis and Public Finance to students in Ahmadu Bello University, Bayero University Kano and University of Jos between 1976-1981. He was a Controller at the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB) and then served as the Director of Budget/ Special Economic Adviser to the Kano State Government between 1981-1985. Usman was then appointed the General Manager of NAL Merchant Bank (currently Sterling Bank).
Impact of Privatisation and Commercialisation (Phase I) on Nigerian Economy
From 1989-1991 Usman served as the pioneer Director General of The Technical Committee of Privatisation and Commercialisation, now the Bureau of Public Enterprises and was responsible for the Phase I programme with the task to reform public enterprises, as an integral and critical component of the IMF led Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), which was started in 1986.
Under his supervision, about 88 public enterprises were either fully or partially privatised without any foreign technical assistance. The programme succeeded in relieving the government of the huge and growing burden of financing public enterprises, minimised the overstretching of government’s managerial capacity through a redefinition of the role of the supervising ministries, created a large body of shareholders and deepened and broadened the Nigerian Capital Market to the position of being the most developed in black Africa. The market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) through which the shares were sold has grown from N8.9 billion in 1987 (before privatisation) to N65.5 billion in 1994 (after the Phase-I). The catalytic effect of the volume of shares released into the market via the privatisation exercise cannot be over empahsised.[1]
The TCPC transformed to the current Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in 1993