corporate sector. Yar'Adua worked at Sambo Farms Ltd. in Funtua, Katsina state, as its pioneer General Manager, between 1983 and 1989. He served as a board member of Katsina State Farmers' Supply Company between 1984 and 1985, Member of the Governing Council of Katsina College of Arts, Science and Technology Zaria and Katsina Polytechnic, between 1978 and 1983, board chairman of Katsina State Investment and Property Development Company between 1994 and 1996. He also served as a director of many companies, including Habib Nigeria Bank Ltd, 1995–99; Lodigiani Nigeria Ltd., 1987–99, Hamada Holdings, 1983–99; and Madara Ltd., Vom, Jos, 1987–99. He was Chairman of Nation House Press Ltd., Kaduna, from 1995 to 1999. Party politics During the Second Republic (1979–83), Yar'Adua was a member of the leftist People's Redemption Party, while his father was briefly the National Vice Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria. During the transition programme of General Ibrahim Babangida to the Third Republic, Yar'Adua was one of the foundation members of the Peoples Front of Nigeria with other members such as Atiku Abubakar, Baba Gana Kingibe, Bola Tinubu, Sabo Bakin Zuwo, Wada Abubakar, Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila, Abubakar Koko and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a political association under the leadership of his elder brother, the late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua. That association later formed the Social Democratic Party. Yar'Adua was a member of the 1988 Constituent Assembly. He was a member of the party's National Caucus and the Nigerian Social Democratic Party's (SDP) State Secretary in Katsina. He contested for the governorship position in the 1991 election, but lost to Saidu Barda, the candidate of the National Republican Convention and an ally of Ibrahim Babangida. Governor of Katsina In 1999, Yar'Adua won the Katsina state governorship election. He was the first governor to publicly declare his assets. Yar'Adua's administration saw various developments in the state. Katsina became the fifth northern Nigerian state to adopt sharia, or Islamic law. Education was prioritised and several schools were built in local areas. Yar'Adua also delivered on his promise of running an efficient public administration, with corruption significantly hampered. In 2003, he was re-elected for a second term in office and his successor was Ibrahim Shema. 2007 presidential election Between 16–17 December 2006, Yar'Adua was chosen as the presidential candidate of the ruling People's Democratic Party for the April 2007 election, receiving 3,024 votes from party delegates; his closest rival, Rochas Okorocha,