Usman was born in 1945 in
Musawa in Katsina Province,
Colonial Nigeria. His father was
Durbin Katsina (a traditional title with kingmaker status in the
Katsina Emirate) and a brother of Sarkin Katsina
Usman Nagogo. His mother was a daughter of Sarkin Kano
Abdullahi Bayero. He attended Musawa Junior Primary School, Kankia Senior Primary School, Minna Senior Primary School and Government College, Kaduna. He then went to study at the University Tutorial College and then at
University of Lancaster where he completed his studies with a degree in History and Political Science. He returned to Nigeria in 1967 to become a teacher at
Barewa College, Zaria where he taught until 1971. Usman started his graduate studies in 1970 at Ahmadu Bello University, earning his PhD degree in 1974. He started lecturing at the university as a part-time lecturer before being promoted to full-time. During the Nigerian Second Republic, he was briefly the Secretary to the Kaduna State government under the
PRP led
Balarabe Musa administration.
Academic career Usman was a major figure among post colonial historians at Ahmadu Bello University, his outlook on African history involves support for the use of oral and linguistic sources along with written and archaeological sources. He felt all sources are subject to bias and that increased scrutiny of oral sources for distortions and colourings was not extended to many written sources by European writers. To him, the historian cannot be divorced from his education and molding as a scholar and the
historicity of the European writers likely influenced some of their writings. Some of his reflections on the writing of African history includes a critique of
Heinrich Barth, a respected source among Western scholars, Usman thought Barth was too focused on the physical and genetic characteristics of those he was studying which he felt was a result of the dominant traditions of nineteenth century European history writing. == Contribution to history ==