Isa Ali Ibrahim Popularly known as Sheikh Pantami, he was (born 20 October 1972) is the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy in Nigeria.
Pantami was the Director General and CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) of Nigeria from 26 September 2016 – 20 August 2019 when he was nominated as minister and sworn into office on the 21st of August, 2019.
Sheikh Isa Ali Pantami Biography Profile In Details
| Full Name: | Sheikh Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami |
|---|---|
| Real Name: | Isa Ali Ibrahim |
| Father Name: | Alhaji Ali Ibrahim Pantami |
| Mother Name: | Hajiya Amina Umar Aliyu |
| Born: | Isa Ali Ibrahim, 20 October 1972 (age 48) Gombe State, Nigeria |
| Nationality and Country: | Nigeria |
| Job/Occupation: | Minister of Communications and Digital Economy |
| Origin/Ethinc/Tribe: | Hausa or Fulani |
| Religion: | Islam |
| Universities: | Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, Harvard University, USA |
| Political Party: | APC |
| Marital Status: | Married |
| Educational Qualification: | BTech, MSc, PhD |
| Net Worth In Dollar: | $900,000 (USD) |
| Net Worth In Naira: | ₦381,941,267 (NGN) |
Isah Ali Pantami Early Life And Educational Background
Dr Pantami lectured at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University in Information Technology before joining the Islamic University of Madinah as Head of Technical Writing in 2014.[3][7] In 2016, he was appointed as the Director General/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).[10][11]
He was confirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari as part of 13 newly appointed chief executives for 13 government agencies.
His directive for NITDA upon employment was to develop the ICT infrastructure in the North East in the aftermath of the destruction caused by Boko Haram insurgency.[13]
Shortly after the WannaCry ransomware attack, he organized the second annual conference on “Financial Fraud and Cyber Crime” in Abuja with the Federal Ministry of Justice and private sector partners.
He also initiated the Nigerian national public key infrastructure (PKI) programme, and went into a security partnership with ESET, an IT security company that offers anti-virus and firewall products.
Isa Ali Pantami Achievements & Records
“Dr Pantami is the first Minister of Communications and Digital Economy after the redesignation of the Ministry’s Name to include responsibilities for creating and formulating Policies for a sustainable Digital Economy for Nigeria.
He has hitherto received an award as the “ICT Promoter of the Year 2017” in London by The Nigerian in recognition of “positive contributions to the ICT revolution in Nigeria, youth empowerment & good governance”.
Within little less than 3 years of his stewardship, he has received over 110 awards and recognitions both within and outside Nigeria.”
Dr Phantami is a fellow of both British Computer Society (FBCS) and Nigeria Computer Society (FNCS).[6] He also has many fellowships to his credit.[16][6]
Sheikh Isah Ali Pantami Religion
Dr Pantami is a Jumu’ah Chief Imam who has been leading the Jumu’ah prayer for over 20 years in both Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
He serves as a Member of Shari’ah Board of Jaiz Bank.
He is also a Shurah member and Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Shari’ah (SCS) in Nigeria.
Ali Phantami was educated in Islam by scholars including Muhammad Umar Fallatah, Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen and Abdulmuhsin ibne Abbad.
He also is the Chairman of Board of Trustees of Al’Hudah Islamiyyah & Mosque Foundation, and a member/secretary of Bauchi State Elders Advisory Committee and Bauchi state National Qur’anic Competition Committee among other committees.
Isa Ali Pantami Publications
Dr Pahntami is an author of books on ICT, STEM, technology, politics & community reconciliation, religion and peaceful coexistence, as well as some over 20 publications in international journals, including International Journal of Innovative Research in Engineering and Management (IJIREM), Macrotheme Review, and International Journal of Computer & Information Technology.
His Publications and Presentations at various Fora can be accessed from his Profile on Research Gate.
Religious books authored by him include Islam and Politics, Synonimity or Dichotomy?, Month of The Qur’an & Its Virtues, and 63 Steps of Performing an Acceptable Hajji and Its Spiritual and Moral Lesson.
Isa Ali Pantami Controversies
Pantami Alleged Complicity in Murder of Sunday Achi
Nigeria’s frontline newspaper , Punch, published a report in which Isa Pantami was said to be the leader of a group that murdered Sunday Achi.
Professor Samuel Achi, Sunday Achi’s father, mentioned in the report that Pantami was the Chief Imam of ATBU mosque at the time.
In the same publication, Professor Samuel Achi said Sunday was murdered in the ATBU mosque.
Pantami Alleged conversion
In June 2017, rumor spread in Nigeria that Ali Pantami has led the conversion of Solomon Dalung, the Minister of Youths and Sports, from Christianity to Islam at the an-Noor Mosque in Abuja.
The rumor was denied by both Pantami and Dalung.[22][23]
Alleged links to Boko Haram and resurfacing of fundamentalist speeches
In April 2021, a publication by an online media company linked the Pantami to then leader of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf as allies, and that Pantami has been listed by the American Government under its terrorist watch list.
Though the publication was later retracted by NewsWireNgr – a third party newspaper that copied the publication from Independent Newspapers Nigeria.
No retraction has been published on the website of Independent Newspapers Nigeria although the article was taken down.
An independent investigation conducted by Premium Times found some of the claims to be untrue, namely the claim that Pantami was “friendly” in a 2006 debate with Yusuf where Pantami in fact argued with Yusuf in support of Western education and serving under a non-Islamic state, but could not confirm if Ali Pantami was placed on the watchlist by the United States of America as the US government does not disclose those on the list.
Pantami threatened to sue the publications that published the original article, stating that while he accepts the retraction from NewsWireNgr, “investigative journalism requires the investigation before publishing, not after” and that “major publishers will meet my lawyers in the court on this defamation of character.”
However, audio published by Peoples Gazette shows that Pantami was sympathetic to Boko Haram members when delivering sermons at several worship centers in the mid to late 2000s.
This revelation led to further resurfacing of Pantami’s old speeches, including a 2004 speech where he expressed support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda (“Oh God, give victory to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda”) and claimed that “jihad is an obligation for every single believer, especially in Nigeria.”
These speeches along with other speeches like one from 2006 where Pantami mourned the death of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (“May God have mercy on Ahmad Fadeel al-Khalayleh [al-Zarqawi’s birth name]) were included in a 2019 paper Debating Boko Haram[28] that went mainly unreported in Nigeria.
The statements ignited controversy and calls for Pantami’s resignation as Communications Minister under the hashtag, #PantamiResign.
Ali Pantami denied condoning terrorism or holding bigoted beliefs, claiming that the majority of his staff are Christians and saying in a Peoples Gazette interview that ‘if I did not like Christians or I did not see them as my brothers and sisters, I would not have been working with them for so long.”
Ali Pantami also said that he had “long preached peaceful coexistence amongst people of every faith and ethnicity” along with claiming that the authors of Debating Boko Haram erred in failing to reach out to him and may have used a poor or biased translation of Hausa Language.
A pro-Pantami campaign to counter the online calls for resignation was exposed when the official Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy Twitter account accidentally tweeted #PantamiWillStay and #PantamiwillnotResign on 17 April after two days of #PantamiResign trending; the tweet was quickly deleted.[33]
Supporters of Pantami with no clear connection to his Ministry did eventually get the #PantamiWillStay hashtag trending on Twitter; however, due to the Ministry’s accidental tweet, it is unclear if the trend was organic.[34]
After the backlash and calls for resignation continued, Pantami disavowed the statements on April 17, saying “some of the comments I made some years ago that are generating controversies now were based on my understanding of religious issues at the time, and I have changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity.”
Despite the recantation, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party joined calls for Pantami’s resignation and also asked the Department of State Services to investigate him. The minister drew further condemnation when he responded to a Facebook post attacking political activist Deji Adeyanju with “Allah ya tsine masa alubarika” in Hausa which roughly translates to “May Allah reject his blessings.”
This reply was followed by scores of Pantami supporters posting pictures of Adeyanju in crosshairs leading many to accuse Pantami of inciting violence; for his part, Pantami claimed his account was hacked and deleted the reply.[37][38]
Isah Aliyu Pantami Alleged EFCC investigation
There have been allegations that Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was investigating the 2017 spending of NITDA, though Pantami and Adebayo Shittu, the Minister of Communications, claimed that no such investigation happened.
Shekh Pantami Contact Information – Phone Number, Email – Social Media Accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Below are the social media accounts and contacts information of Heidi Cruz, the accounts are been managed by her, she txt and tweets dailys on her twitter and othet social media’s
| Email: | IsaAliIbrahim@Hotmail.com |
|---|---|
| Twitter: | @DrIsaPantami |
| Instagram: | @isaalipantami |
| Facebook Page: | Dr. Isa Ali Pantami |
| Phone Number: | Not Available |
Isa Ali Pantami Net Worth
He is one of the richest Politician in Nigeria with an estimated net worth of about $900,000 US Dollars equivalent to about ₦381,941,267 Naira in Nigeria currency.
