Abdullahi Mohammad Ahmad Hassan () (born January 1928, died 22 June 2022) was a veteran Sudanese politician who was a member of parliament, a government minister and diplomat.
Biography
Abdullahi was born in 1928 in the town of Barah in the state of North Kurdufan in Sudan. His family later moved and settled in Al-Ubayyid. At an early age he was sent to a Koranic school () after which he followed the British education system in implementation by the British at the time. In 1947 he joined the newly established Hantoub Secondary School () and later went on to study at and graduate in May 1955 from the Faculty of Arts at the University College of Khartoum.
After graduating he was posted as a history teacher in the town of Tonj in the south of Sudan. In August 1955 he was re-posted to as a history teacher at Khour Taqatt Secondary School () just weeks before the first uprising of the Anyanya Movement in the South. In August 1958 he resigned his post as a teacher and moved to Khartoum where he started his business in commercial advertisements and feasibility studies. At this time he also carried out some journalism work for the two biggest newspapers at the time (Al-Umma and Al-Nile). In 1958 he opposed the new military government of General Aboud who seized power in a coup d'état. He was politically intimidated by the new government in Khartoum and his newly formed business suffered as a result. An opportunity arose in 1959 when he was approached by a local committee from Al-Ubayyid requesting him to establish and run an intermediate level school. He moved to Al-Ubayyid and establish Kurdufan Ahliya Intermediate School () and ran it as its headmaster. He was approached in 1961 by Alsayeed Sidique Abdulrahman Almahadi to take charge and run the Almahadi Intermediate School for Girls () in Omdurman. He took charge of the school the same year and overhauled it to become one of the most sought-after schools in the city. He resigned from the school in 1963 because of tensions with the head of the school board over the way financial funds were released by the board and over his strict discipline rules. After resigning he worked for the American Embassy until 1964 as their chief translator.
Political career
Abdullahi grew up in a Sudan that was under the occupation of the British Empire and from a young age joined in the sentiments of the youth that was disgruntled by the occupation, and was calling for the withdrawal of the British from Sudan. In March 1949 Babikir Karrar Al-Nour (), Mohammad Yousif Mohammad (), Mohammad Mohammad Ali (), Adam Fadl-Allah () and Yousif Hassan Said () established the Islamic Liberation Movement () at the University of Khartoum. The goal of the movement was to liberate Sudan from British occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the country. Babikr Karar Al-Nour was a former and a very active and popular student at Hantoob Secondary School. After the establishment of the movement, and in June 1949, Karrar visited Hantoob Secondary School to canvass for members for his movement. Abdullahi was one of the 30 students who joined the movement that day.
Before the establishment of the Islamic Liberation Movement, the Communist Party had a strong hold on the student union at the university and among the secondary schools in Sudan. Abdullahi joined the university in 1951, in 1952 the Islamic Liberation Movement won the student union election. Abdudllahi was a major recruitment driver for the movement and managed to recruit Hassan Al-Turabi, Mohammad Suar Aldahab, Ibrahim Abou Hasaneen, and Abdalhameed Abdalmajid. In 1954, Sudan politics was at a crossroads between the union of Sudan with Egypt or complete independence.
In 1954 two main political bodies were formed and later became a member of the Umma Party. Sudan officially achieved its independence in 1956; the first prime minister was Ismail al-Azhari and later on Abdallah Khalil. The democratic government was overthrown in a coup d'état by Ibrahim Abboud in 1958. Abdullahi joined the ranks of the opposition and in 1964 the students of the University of Khartoum, the civil servants and transport workers staged demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience that forced the government of Ibrahim Abboud to resign. Abdullahi was elected a second time as a Member of Parliament in the second Sudanese democracy under the leadership of al-Azhari, and the government of al-Azhari was overthrown in 1969 by Gaafar Nimeiry. Abdullahi again joined the opposition under the leadership of Sadiq al-Mahdi and was exiled to Saudi Arabia but later on moved to the United Kingdom. He returned to Sudan in 1979 after a National Reconciliation took place between the leaders of the opposition and Nimeiry.