Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa (born 4 October 1954) was governor of Sokoto State

Sokoto State

Sokoto State is located in the extreme northwest of Nigeria, near to the confluence of the Sokoto River and the Rima River. As of 2005 it has an estimated population of more than 4.2 million...

 in Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 from 29 May 1999 to 29 May 2007.
He was a local government councillor in charge of Education. In 1979, he ran unsuccessfully for election to the House of Representatives on the platform of the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP).
He was a member of the National Constitutional Conference of 1994–1995, during the military rule of Sani Abacha

Sani Abacha

General Sani Abacha was a Nigerian military leader and politician. A Kanuri from Borno by tribe, he was born and brought up in Kano, Nigeria. He was the de facto President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998....

.
He was a founding member of the United Nigeria Congress Party

United Nigeria Congress Party

The United Nigeria Congress Party was a Nigerian political party that was one of the five state-sanctioned political parties allowed by the government of General Sani Abacha to participate in state assembly elections held in December 1997, in which it won many elections, and in parliamentary...

 (UNCP - 1997) and the All People's Party (APP - 1998).
In 1999 he was elected governor of Sokoto State on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and was reelected for the ANPP in 2003.
In March 2002, a Sharia

Sharia

Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 court in Sokoto State freed a 35-year old woman Safiya Hussaini

Safiya Hussaini

Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu is a Nigerian woman condemned to death for adultery in 2002. She gave birth to a child as a single woman in Sokoto, a Nigerian state under Sharia law...

, who had been sentenced to death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery.