By Dakuku Peterside
Can Nigeria’s states become true engines of development, or are they condemned to remain
administrative outposts of a distant federal centre? This question has new urgency as
citizens grow weary of a federation that promises much but delivers too little in the places
where life is actually lived. Communities, farms, schools, hospitals, markets, and local roads
are where impact matters most. The federal government may control national discourse, but
for most Nigerians, the quality of governance is experienced first and most directly at the
subnational level.
The tragedy is that many states have not justified the confidence placed in them. Increased
allocations too often yield larger convoys, broader patronage networks, grandiose projects,
and scant structural change. Poverty deepens. Youth unemployment festers. Schools decay.
Hospitals struggle. Rural roads vanish after the rains. Insecurity spreads into spaces vacated
by weak institutions. For many citizens, government is something they hear about, not
something they experience.
Yet the story is not uniformly bleak. Across the federation, a few states are beginning to
show that subnational leadership can still matter. Katsina State, under Governor Dikko
Umaru Radda, offers one of the more convincing examples of how a state confronted by
serious challenges can begin to organise itself around a coherent development vision. The
following sections describe how Katsina’s experience demonstrates this possibility across
major sectors.
Katsina is not an easy canvas. It sits in a region scarred by insecurity, poverty,
unemployment, educational divides, and institutional fragility. These are not abstract
problems but lived realities. They shape whether farmers work, children stay in school,
pregnant women reach care, traders move goods safely, and young people see hope
beyond desperation. In such a context, leadership is not evaluated by slogans, but by clear
thought, disciplined execution, and the guts to build institutions that meet people’s needs.
Governor Radda’s governing philosophy is anchored in the Building Your Future agenda, a
strategic framework that links today’s emergencies with tomorrow’s possibilities. Its
importance does not lie merely in its title but in its logic. Radda’s argument is that building for
the future is not a luxury to be postponed until current problems disappear. Rather, it is the
surest way to confront the present. Many of today’s crises are the harvest of yesterday’s
failure to plan. To build the future, therefore, is to repair the present.
This mindset explains the administration’s focus on security, agriculture, education,
healthcare, infrastructure, renewable energy, public-sector reform, social services,
innovation, ICT, and enterprise. The approach is imperfect, and no serious observer should
claim Katsina’s burdens are gone. Yet, it constitutes a clear break from the piecemeal
governance that has weakened many Nigerian states. Radda seems to grasp that
development is an ecosystem. Security without jobs is fragile; education without health is
incomplete; agriculture without roads, irrigation, and power is trapped; infrastructure without
human capital is sterile; empowerment without institutions is temporary.
Agriculture is the clearest expression of this integrated approach. Katsina’s future depends
on the land’s productivity and the dignity of its farmers. Since 2023, the administration has
treated agriculture not as seasonal charity but as a platform for food security, jobs, and rural
prosperity. It began with baseline reviews across all 34 local government areas, irrigation
assessments in the Katsina, Daura, and Funtua zones, dam evaluations, farmer
consultations, extension worker deployment, and reforms to input distribution. The aim:
remove corrupt middlemen, register farmers digitally, revive assets like the Songhai Farm in
Dutsin-Ma, and create policies for youth agribusiness and climate-smart farming.
That preparatory work has now moved to implementation. Farmers have received power
tillers, tractors, solar pumps, fertiliser, improved seeds, herbicides, and pesticides. The
irrigation programme, with tube wells, dredgers, and dam rehabilitation, has strengthened
dry-season farming and reduced dependence on rain-fed agriculture. The youth
agribusiness programme offers trainees start-up support and recognises that agriculture
must appeal to young people. Mechanisation centres, women-focused interventions, agro-
processing initiatives, and the KASPA digital platform show Katsina is seeking to build an
agricultural value chain, not just distribute inputs.
The 2026 consolidation, including ward- and polling-unit-based fertiliser distribution, aims to
bring support closer to real farmers. In a country where programs are often hijacked before
reaching beneficiaries, this matters. Sustained transparency, published beneficiary data,
yield monitoring and impact tracking could make Katsina a model for agricultural reform in
rural areas.
Education is the second major pillar. No state can escape poverty by neglecting classrooms.
Katsina’s history of educational disadvantage makes schooling central to its agenda.
Radda’s background as an educationist brings coherence to reform. An investment of over
₦120 billion—about a quarter of the annual budget—shows that education is seen not as a
token but as the foundation for mobility and competitiveness.
The initiatives are extensive: new secondary and junior secondary schools in underserved
areas, rehabilitation of existing schools, smart schools in senatorial zones, ICT centres,
tablets, solar-powered learning environments, and a feeding programme reportedly reaching
hundreds of thousands of pupils. Recruiting over 7,000 teachers and training thousands
more in modern, digital methods addresses an essential truth: education reform is
impossible without capable, motivated teachers.
Equally significant is the administration’s scholarship programme under the Building Your
Future agenda. Support for tertiary students, merit awards, and the sponsorship of Katsina
students abroad in fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Bioengineering, and Medicine
demonstrate an effort to connect children in rural communities to the knowledge economy of
the future. This is what serious subnational leadership should do. It must not only repair
broken classrooms; it must expand the imagination of a generation.
Healthcare is another measure of the administration’s seriousness. A state denying basic
care cannot claim to be developing. Katsina’s upgrade of over 268 Primary Healthcare
Centres across 34 local government areas targets rural communities and aims for one
functional PHC per ward. Tricycle ambulances, outreach, renovated theatres, expanded
maternity units, staffing, drug supplies, and solar-powered facilities address obstacles that
determine whether healthcare is accessible or just promised.
The investments at the tertiary level are also notable: a dialysis centre, an imaging centre
under construction, residency programmes, medical scholarships and specialised medical
procedures that would once have required patients to travel elsewhere. Health insurance
coverage for hundreds of thousands of residents, if effectively implemented and funded,
could reduce the devastating burden of out-of-pocket spending. The real test will be
sustainability: drugs must remain available, facilities must be maintained, workers must be
motivated, data must be collected, and services must be monitored. But the direction is
unmistakable. Katsina is trying to build a health system that starts at the ward level and rises
to specialised care.
The renewable energy push may prove one of the administration’s most consequential
interventions. Power is the hidden infrastructure behind all modern development. Without
reliable energy, hospitals struggle, schools underperform, irrigation fails, small businesses
shrink, and public institutions become inefficient. Katsina’s investment in solar power, battery
storage, mini-grids, solarised public institutions, solar-powered dams, streetlights, clean
mobility, CNG-hybrid vehicles, and the revival of the Lambar Rimi Wind Farm reflects an
understanding that the energy transition is not simply an environmental agenda; it is also an
economic and governance agenda.
By linking renewable energy to hospitals, schools, dams, government institutions, and
mobility systems, the state is reducing its dependence on an unreliable national grid. This
also lowers operating costs and expands productive opportunities. The proposed solar
farms, hybrid wind-solar systems, mini-hydro projects, and private investment frameworks
have the potential to position Katsina as a clean-energy hub in Northern Nigeria. If executed
well, this could strengthen agriculture, improve security through lighting, power public
services, and attract investors looking for lower-cost environments.
Katsina shows subnational development needs more than money—it needs structure.
Nigerian states frequently fail due to a lack of coordination and resolve. Katsina suggests
three lessons.
First, development must be planned as a system, not performed as a spectacle.
Commissioning ceremonies are not a transformation. Transformation happens when
agriculture connects to irrigation, roads, power, markets, and youth employment; when
schools connect to teachers, technology, feeding, and scholarships; when healthcare
connects to primary facilities, insurance, drugs, doctors, and referral systems. The strength
of the Katsina example is not any single project. It is the attempt to create a chain of
mutually reinforcing interventions.
Second, proximity is the greatest advantage of subnational government. States are close
enough to know which communities are cut off, which schools lack teachers, which hospitals
lack equipment, which farmers need irrigation, which youths need skills, and which roads
carry economic value. When governors govern with seriousness, they can solve problems
accurately that the federal centre cannot easily achieve. When they govern carelessly,
proximity becomes a wasted opportunity.
Third, leadership is ultimately a moral choice. Poverty is not destiny. Illiteracy is not fate.
Insecurity is not inevitable. They are often the result of accumulated policy failure,
institutional neglect, corruption, poor planning and low ambition. Radda’s most important
contribution may be his refusal to accept fatalism. He appears to understand that the duty of
leadership is not to explain helplessness but to organise possibility.
So, can subnationals anchor development in Nigeria? Katsina’s answer is cautiously
hopeful. Yes, states can become engines of progress when leadership is purposeful,
planning is disciplined, institutions are strengthened, and public resources are tied to human
outcomes. Nigeria’s renewal may not begin in Abuja. It may begin in states that understand
that governance is not theatre, that budgets are moral documents, and that the future must
be built deliberately.
Katsina is still a work in progress. Its difficulties are real, and its achievements must continue
to be tested against citizens lived experience. But under Governor Dikko Umaru Radda, the
state is making an important statement: even in difficult terrain, governance can still be
thoughtful; even under pressure, leadership can still choose direction; even during despair, a
state can organise hope.
That is the more profound significance of the Katsina story. It is not simply about one
governor or one administration. It is about the possibility of a different kind of Nigerian
federalism—one in which states stop waiting for rescue from the centre and begin to build
the future from the ground up.
Dr Dakuku Peterside is the author of “Leading in a Storm” and “Beneath the Surface”
