Background
Abdel Abdalla was born in 1932 at Abu Hamed, 300 miles north of Khartoum.
Abdel Abdalla was born in 1932 at Abu Hamed, 300 miles north of Khartoum.
Educated locally, then graduated in administration in 1956 at the University of Khartoum.
After entering government service in 1956 he became a deputy district officer in the Ministry of the Interior. Promoted inspector of the Tokar district in Eastern Sudan, he later became inspector of Kassala Province, in 1959 he worked with the Haifa Resettlement Commission, but retired from government service later that year.
Resuming his academic studies, he went to New York on a scholarship and gained his Master of Arts degree in Administration in 1963. He returned to the Sudan and became director of the institute of Public Administration from 1963 to 1965. He went to Morocco in 1965 as director of the African Administration Training and Research Institute. Next he was appointed director of the National Institute of Public Administration in Libya.
President Nimeri brought him into his administration as Deputy Minister of Local Government on August 11, 1971. Two months later he joined the cabinet. He was one of the seven-man delegation sent from Khartoum in February 1972 to negotiate the agreement with the South at Addis Ababa. He retained his Portfolio in the October 1972 reshuffle and again in the streamlined cabinet of May 1973.
Recognised as an authority on public administration throughout the Arab world, having studied in America and taught in the Sudan, Morocco and Libya. A man of practical and academic experience in local government, he caught the eye of President Nimeri as a roan of promise and was drafted straight into Government in 1971.