All attention turned towards Jigawa State on the fateful Christmas day last December, when the news broke that the governor, Umar Namadi, had lost his mother, Hajiya Maryam, in Kafin Hausa, his home town, some 75 kilometres from the state capital, Dutse. Unbeknownst to the grieving governor, a second tragedy was about to strike. The following day, his eldest son, Abdulwahab, 24, was killed in a road accident while driving to Kafin Hausa to join the grieving first family.
“Those who have encountered him credit him with remarkable humility, transparency, discipline, and incorruptibility, which are not the norms of typical Nigerian politicians and public office holders—elected or appointed.”
Those who know the Governor closely say he is courageous enough to cope with these adversities, thanks also to his rare commitment and dedication to his duties.
Indeed, on the 30th of December—only a few days after these tragic deaths—Namadi summoned his council members to his chamber and had a lengthy meeting with them, where far-reaching issues were said to have been discussed and decisions taken. He also, on the 31st of December, signed the 2025 budget into law. He seemed to have put the tragedies and other political challenges behind him in a rare display of stoicism to face the arduous task of governing the state.
However turbulent any system is, it has a way of throwing up high performers who turn an otherwise gloomy horizon into a blaze of glory. This is what the story of Namadi and Jigawa of today seems to proclaim.
A political analyst familiar with the situation in Jigawa state says of the governor, “The citizens of Jigawa can sleep with their two eyes closed, rest assured their resources aren’t mismanaged or abused in any way but rather are effectively utilised for the overall benefit of all.” Those who have encountered him credit him with remarkable humility, transparency, discipline, and incorruptibility, which are not the norms of typical Nigerian politicians and public office holders—elected or appointed.
There are those who believe that corruption is the one phenomenon that tops the list of factors that are responsible for Nigeria’s stagnation, indeed, its retardation. On this score, Umar Namadi, the governor of Jigawa state, has hit the bull’s eye.
Nigerians, whose attention was drawn to Jigawa State as a result of the double tragedies on Christmas and Boxing Day, will do well to follow developments in the state. There is a silent revolution unfolding in Jigawa, thanks to the project management acumen of the governor, who is committed to leveraging critical partnerships with multilateral organisations and financial institutions in this enterprise. Impressively, he’s deployed the right technology in proffering solutions to problems that require technology to deal with. Very soon, the Human Development Indices (life expectancy, education, and income levels), the poverty index narratives that often rank Jigawa in the lower half among the Nigerian states, will change.
To ascertain his workforce, the Jigawa State Government carried out a statewide staff audit biometric data capture and validation exercise, which uncovered 6,348 ghost workers in its staff. This saved the state over N314 million monthly. To ensure sustainability, the State Executive Council approved the establishment of the Continuous Capture Centre (CCC) at the Office of the Head of Civil Service. This is one deployment of technology to plug leakages in the state’s resources.
His next stop was education. Using a project management acumen, he directed that a survey be undertaken, which “showed the level of dilapidation in the infrastructure, among the problems of insufficient number of teachers, especially at the primary school level, as well as poor attendance among those available.” In response, the Ministry of Education was broken into two: the Ministry of Basic Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. The state then embarked on the renewal of infrastructure, repairing the dilapidated classroom to improve the learning environment. At the higher education level, his administration is providing more infrastructures to decongest classrooms. Based on the recommendation of a special visitation panel, new boards were constituted to inject life into the running of the institutions that have weakened over the years.
Still tackling the issues bedevilling the educational sector, the government introduced the Jigawa Compete, an educational software initiative that assisted teachers to impart knowledge to students. It retrained many of its teachers on the much-needed computer literacy, providing them with laptops and furnishing each classroom with an iPad and a laptop, with assistance from UNICEF. It also provided internet connections for one year, after which the state ensured its renewal. In all, thousands of teachers have benefitted from other forms of refresher training. Today, Jigawa State is also exploring collaboration with New Globe, a British educational resource company specialising in pattern knowledge, on how to improve the state’s education system at the basic level. From all indications, Governor Namadi is committed to meeting UNESCO’s threshold for education funding.
Similar to what it has done in education, Jigawa State conducted a baseline survey that identified the need to improve the smallholder farmers’ access to credits and inputs. In addition, it recognised the need to embrace the mechanisation of farming and started a process to achieve this. The government is promoting dry season farming, supported by irrigation, extension services, the use of improved planting material, and quality fertilisers sold to farmers at subsidised rates. The Governor is also leveraging relevant financial institutions to advance the interest of the people of the state. There have been discussions with the Bank of Industry (BoI) to establish two funds—a matching fund and a managed fund. The state provided N2 billion for matching funds to support their N2 billion pledged funding, making a total of N4 billion. Jigawa also provided N2 billion as a managed fund. So a total of six billion Naira has been made available.
Read also: Governor Namadi’s measured approach beckons transformation of Jigawa
On extension services, the state government decided to recruit about 1,400 extension workers in collaboration with another development partner, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) (under the PropCom segment of the FCDO).
Meanwhile, the governor is impressively taking advantage of the federal government’s wheat programme, through the African Development Bank (AfDB), which is making available funding for 120,000 hectares, out of which Jigawa was allocated 40,000 hectares but exceeded it by doing 55,000 hectares. Namadi’s ambition is to achieve 250,000 hectares in the next few years, which the AfDB has pledged to support already. Pleased with the bumper harvest in 2024 and the fact that the people are happy with what happened with government intervention, he was encouraged to increase the 2025 budget for agriculture to 21 percent of the total budget, second only to the allocation to education.
In investment promotion, while Jigawa had all the agencies—Jigawa Invest, the one-stop shop for investment promotion; the Gagarawa Industrial Park; the Maigatari Export Processing Zone; and others—Gov. Namadi, a distinguished accountant and former financial controller at Dangote Group, has had the arduous task of bringing them back to life. He went to NEPZA to renew the license of the Maigatari Industrial Export Processing Zone. The visibly elated Namadi has this to say on his tour around the Maigatari EPZ: “As of today, almost all the warehouses have been rented out. People have shown a lot of interest. So business is coming back hopefully at the Maigatari processing zone. So those of you who are ready, let us know. Now, five companies from different destinations have come in. They have started building, and work is going on.”
For small and medium-scale enterprises, the people-focused governor has also put in funds at the Bank of Industry (BoI) for SMEs to improve their businesses, as mentioned earlier. His government is building about 300 kiosks that will be sited one in each of the political wards and equipped in such a way that they can stock all the provisions required and sold at subsidised prices. Talk of gender mainstreaming, the kiosks will be run by 300 young men and women, whose livelihoods will surely be enhanced. These signposts Jigawa as an investment destination, ready to welcome investors to Jigawa State in large numbers.
When the Namadi administration came on board, Jigawa’s IGR was about N200 million to N300 million per month. Today, it is between N1.5 billion and N2 billion per month—a remarkable feat in less than two years. This achievement will not come as a surprise for those who closely follow his antecedents in public service. It was said of Governor Namadi that when he was appointed Commissioner of Finance and Economic Planning in 2015, he implemented significant financial reforms, including the adoption of the Single Treasury Account (TSA). His tenure contributed to making Jigawa one of the least indebted states in Nigeria.
Known for his humility and dedication, Namadi has been actively involved in community development. He established the first private rice milling company in Jigawa State, providing employment opportunities. He introduced an outgrower scheme to modernise farming practices. Additionally, he co-founded an educational foundation sponsoring the education of underprivileged youth.
Nowhere is his humility displayed more than in the way he dismissed insinuations that there is a silent struggle for supremacy raging between him and his immediate predecessor and former boss, Muhammad Badaru Abubakar, including on the recent ministerial nomination and other federal-level appointees from Jigawa State. Namadi insists Badaru is and remains his “boss and political mentor,” whom he holds in high esteem. A reliable source close to the Governor says, “It is unfounded and pure political mischief to allege that the Governor had made efforts to unseat Badaru as Minister from the cabinet of President Tinubu during the recent cabinet reshuffle.” The source added, “But rather, Namadi has always supported Badaru to retain his seat and succeed in doing his job for the benefit of the country and the people of Jigawa.’’
To Namadi, his biggest challenges are not political but rather, as he said in a recent interview, “Trying to see how I reduce the hardship for my people. How do I empower my people? How do I improve their living conditions? That is my greatest challenge.
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