By Abba Anwar

As multi-sectoral and impactful, His Excellency, the Deputy Senate President, Dr Barau I Jibrin, CFR, is, his impact as a good and responsible representative, is felt across the entire Kano state, particularly, his primary constituency, Kano North. It isn’t an over-streched statement or boastful presentation, to say, Kano has never produced, a productive and people – oriented Senator like him. I stand to be corrected.

His expertise goes beyond being an orator, on the floor of the Senate, this important quality touches his constituents with multi-sectoral interventions across all the local governments. His quietness, discipline, leniency, humane posture, regional and global understanding, and intellectual capacity, are not only intimidating, they are the engine room of his domineering effect among contemporaries. No doubt about this. He who doubts, at his own peril.

On the floor of the Senate, DSP Jibrin, commands respect among colleagues. As he believes respect is reciprocal. Not only his Distinguished colleagues, even staff of the National Assembly, Senate precisely, know that, His Excellency is a rallying point for true patriotism and disciplined citizenship. His detribalised posture, earns him more respect among colleagues. He doesn’t look down at fellow human beings. An attribute that is naturally his.

The first Deputy Senate President from Kano state, since the return of democracy. It is an open secret that, His Excellency, Senate President, Senator God’swill Akpabio, enjoys working with the DSP very well. He finds an informed, highly educated, well versed, down-to-earth, an excellent human manager and brilliant Deputy, in DSP Jibrin. So also other Distinguished colleagues. Kano is proud of you Sir! Adieu Senator!! Adieu!!!

His strength in the Senate lies on the shoulders of its leadership and all other Distinguished colleagues. The kind of cooperation and mutual understanding he enjoys from his colleagues, became defining moment in his legislative life and selfless representation.

His unrelenting effort in respectfully engaging with all Senators, coupled with his brilliant understanding and contributions in the legislative process, earn him extra goodwill and well wishes from his colleagues. He is one of the leading principal officers, who listens the demands of colleagues and attends to them.

His multi – sectoral interventions back home, made it necessary for him to look at many sectors and sub-sectors, for the good of his people. Let me refer back to few months ago. This enlightened Senator, was, according to a research then, the most visible and one of the most productive legislators across Northern Nigeria. His, is beyond Kano.

As his legislative influence and recognition, go beyond Nigeria. Remember? He is the First Deputy Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament. A position he holds with passion, confidence, strategic engagement, vivid understanding of the global politics and Pan African posture. He has already been identified as one of the most vibrant legislators across Africa. Barau Ikon Allah!

What results are there at home from this gentleman? This space cannot take all his interventions back home. But I manage to list some of the fundamental projects and programmes from the Distinguished Senator. Let me start with his interventions for Kano North, 2015–2026, at a glance, if you wish.

Under Education he initiated Foreign scholarships. Fully funded Postgraduate Scholarships Abroad for indigent students through Barau I. Jibrin Foundation. Where seventy (70) students from across all the local governments under his Kano North zone benefited. All the sponsored students, that I earlier called BARAU SCHOLARS, got admission to study modern courses of greater value and substance. Such as Software Engineering, Robotics Sciences, Artificial Intelligence, Forensic Engineering, among others.

Just few days back, some of the Barau Scholars came back home after successfully completing their postgraduate studies abroad. They were received well by Barau’s Foundation and their respective families. They promised to give their quota in the development of the state as a whole. And the country in general. This is selfless, meaningful and patriotic engagement of our youth. One like no other.

It is all there for all to go and search, he gave scholarships for hundreds of thousands for Kano North students, across our tertiary institutions in the state. Which was also extended statewide, for other students from Kano Central and Kano South senatorial zones. Under this our people – oriented Senator also sponsored 300 hundred students to some selected Nigerian universities across the nation. All the stories are there for one to search.

He sponsored and facilitated for the establishment of Federal University of Science and Technology, Kabo (FUST, Kabo). Which has since taken-off. Renaming of Federal College of Education, Kano, (FCE, Kano) to Yusuf Maitama Sule Federal University of Education, Kano.

He facilitated the establishment of Satellite Campuses of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) across all the local governments under his constituency, Kano North. He did that to ameliorate the suffering of our students going to other places for the NOUN programmes. With this, many more students got enrolled to further their education.

I do not talk of how he facilitated for the establishment of Satellite Campuses of the Federal University, Dutsinma, across many local governments in Kano state. With this initiative, many Kano students got admission and have started their studies comfortably. He believes in education being the key to human and societal development.

Under Agriculture & Food Security, DSP allocated the sum of Two Billion Seventy Nine Hundred Thousand Naira (N2.79b), under Barau Initiative for Agricultural Revolution in the Northwest (BIARN), scheme. Where interest-free N5m loans would be given to each of the 558 young farmers across Northwest. Though the project is still batting hard to be implemented.

He developed another agricultural strategy for 132 beneficiaries, under special programme of Crop Focus, for maize and rice cultivation to boost yields and cut food cost. An initiative to promote food security. In the same line, he distributed over 400,000 bags of rice as palliatives to over Two Hundred Thousand households across Kano. This is just an estimate.

Under Economic Empowerment & Poverty Alleviation, he recently launched programme for grant distribution of One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000), only as monthly capital to 1,300 individuals per month, from Kano North zone for 12 months. Which means a total of 15,600 beneficiaries. While the total disbursement will be over Two Hundred Million Naira (N218.2m) in one year.

He distributed the sum of N20,000 cash grants to 10,000 beneficiaries across 44 local government areas. Where 6,500 selected from Kano North, his constituency. At 500 per local government. Plus 112 beneficiaries per local government in Kano Central and Kano South. A Senator like no other.

Under the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for our small businesses, he purchased and distributed working equipments, like 1,300 sewing machines, 1,300 grinding machines, 1,300 deep freezers, 1,300 noodle-making machines and bags of flour, for women and youth across the state. A multi-purpose Senator if you like.

In his patriotic intervention in the transport sector, as his support, he distributed 1,300 bicycles for students in his constituency, especially in the rural areas, where the means of transportation is hard and harsh. He gave out 1,000 motorcycles to beneficiaries who came from different communities. With130 vehicles to transport unions.

In his unmatched effort to boost commercial activities around transport business, he initiated and launched Kano North Transport Service (KNTS), with 107 buses. It hardly takes you over 10 or 20 minutes, as one is plying major roads in Kano North without spotting such commercial buses with their tags and names decorated. This is human development per excellence.

For Sports and Youth Development, in his effort to boost sporting activities among youth, to keep them busy and drive them away from any form of drug abuse, he provided Jerseys for 1,950 teams across Kano North. Apart from other sport kits.

Under security, Distinguished Senator Jibrin, provided dozens of operational vehicles to Kano State Police Command to help them access nooks and crannies of the state. Some few months back, he donated over One Thousand (1,000) motorcycles to the Command for distribution to other ranks and file for easy and accessible operations across the state.

He gave out other logistics support to all the security agencies across the state. Apart from other security assistance to all security services in the state. Some of such donations cannot be disclosed for security reasons. As some security issues are not meant for public eyes.

For Legislative and regional projects he dearly facilitated projects across Kano North LGAs. His primary constituency. He hosted ECOWAS Parliament 2nd Extraordinary Session in Kano with 12 African countries in attendance, in April 2024. With that he was able to bring to the fore, for the participants to know the value of Kano culture, alongside the culture of the nation as a whole.

Distinguished DSP is not only a bridge builder between old and upcoming politicians in the North, he is one of the few legislators, who struggle to become embodiment of virtue, discipline, respect, hardwork, foresight, open-minded with sterling qualities, fearlessness and total commitment to welfare state.

With politicians like DSP, up North, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) needs a few press of some carefully selected buttons, ahead of 2027. If you want victory embrace those who see themselves as servants of the people.

Anwar writes from Kano
Tuesday, 21st April, 2026

Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya

When Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf made the bold and courageous decision to align Kano State with the Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the critics were loud, the cynics were louder, and the doubters were everywhere. They called it political betrayal. They called it opportunism. Some called it the ultimate act of ingratitude toward a man who had invested years, resources, and political capital in building the career of the Kano governor. What they failed to see, or perhaps refused to acknowledge, was the singular and unwavering motivation behind that decision: the welfare of the ordinary men and women of Kano State, the market trader in Kurmi, the widowed mother in Dawakin Tofa, the unemployed graduate in Gwale, and the small business owner struggling to keep his shop open in Farm Centre.
In less than a year of active federal alignment, Kano State has gone from being a politically isolated outlier to becoming one of the most strategically positioned states in the entire federation. Federal presence, federal investment, and federal goodwill are flowing into Kano with a consistency and velocity that was simply impossible under the previous arrangement, where governance was dictated not by the needs of the people, but by the personal wishes of a political godfather seated comfortably in Abuja. For too long, Kano, a state that by every measure of population, commerce, history, and strategic importance deserves to sit at the very centre of Nigeria’s development conversation, was standing at the margins, watching other states benefit from federal partnerships while its own people paid the price of political stubbornness.
The clearest and most visible evidence of this transformation is the forthcoming flag off of the Energise Commercialisation Now initiative, a landmark federal programme spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology under the Honourable Minister, Dr. Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh, SAN, scheduled to hold in Kano from April 23 to 25, 2026. The programme, designed to mobilise innovation, attract investment, and accelerate industrial production across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, has chosen Kano as the venue for its national launch and North West zonal deployment. That choice is not accidental. It is not logistical. It is a deliberate federal acknowledgement of Kano’s strategic importance as the commercial and industrial heartbeat of Northern Nigeria, and a direct reward for Governor Yusuf’s visionary and courageous leadership.
The Energise Commercialisation Now initiative represents a structured national platform to identify commercially viable innovations, connect them with investors and manufacturers, and scale them into enterprises that create jobs and generate wealth. For a state like Kano, with its rich history of commerce, its dense network of small and medium enterprises, its vibrant informal economy, and its large population of young, talented, and ambitious people, this programme is not merely a federal event passing through. It is a genuine economic opportunity of generational significance.
More significantly, the programme will be flagged off by no less a personality than Her Excellency Senator Oluremi Tinubu, CON, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the personal champion of the ECoN initiative. Her presence in Kano is a statement of the highest order. In Nigerian political culture, when the First Lady travels to a state to commission a programme, it is not a routine governmental act. It is a personal signal from the Presidency itself. It is Aso Rock saying, in the clearest possible terms, that Kano is seen, Kano is valued, Kano is a priority, and Kano will not be left behind in Nigeria’s march toward industrial and economic transformation.
For Governor Yusuf, whose critics questioned whether his alignment with the APC and the Tinubu administration would translate into anything concrete for his people, Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s visit to Kano on April 23 is the most powerful possible answer. It says that the partnership is real, the commitment is genuine, and the dividends are already arriving.
But beyond the symbolism and the political significance, what does all of this mean for the ordinary Kano citizen?
It means that the innovator in Fagge, the young entrepreneur in Tarauni, the female small business owner in Nasarawa, and the graduate sitting at home in Ungogo and all other localities in Kano now have a real, structured, and government-backed platform to showcase their ideas, access funding, connect with investors, and build enterprises that can employ others. It means that Kano’s universities, polytechnics, and research institutions, which for years have produced brilliant graduates and groundbreaking research that never left the laboratory, will now have a direct pipeline to the market. It means that the textile artisan in Kofar Mata, the leather craftsman in Yan Kaba, and the food processing entrepreneur in Dorayi can look at this programme and see themselves as legitimate participants in Nigeria’s industrial future.
This is precisely the promise of Governor Yusuf’s Kano First Agenda, an agenda that places the prosperity of Kano people above every political consideration, above every personal loyalty, and above every partisan calculation. When the governor stood before his people and declared that Kano would come first in every decision his administration makes, he was not making a campaign promise. He was entering into a sacred covenant with millions of people who had entrusted him with the highest office in the state.
Every decision his administration has taken since then, including the historic and difficult decision to align with the centre, has been guided by that covenant. The governor has consistently and publicly maintained that he answers to the people of Kano, not to any individual, not to any movement, and not to any political structure whose primary interest is the perpetuation of personal power rather than the advancement of public good. Kano State, he insists, is no longer remotely controlled. The elected chief executive is fully in charge, and fully accountable to the people alone.
The results of this philosophy are not abstract. They are measurable, verifiable, and visible to anyone willing to look beyond the noise of political controversy.
A N1.477 trillion budget for 2026, the largest in Kano’s history, with 68 percent allocated to capital projects. Over N334 million disbursed to 6,680 women across all 44 local government areas of the state, each receiving a monthly stipend of N50,000 to grow their businesses and support their families. More than N800 million invested in youth empowerment programmes benefiting over 5,300 young people. Kano ranking first in Nigeria’s 2025 NECO results, a historic educational achievement that signals a transformation in the state’s human capital investment. A health sector receiving N212.2 billion, with hospitals upgraded, the Abba Care Scheme launched, and healthcare access expanded across the state. An infrastructure allocation of N346.2 billion, covering urban roads, solar streetlights, housing development, and market renovation across all 44 local government areas.
These are not political talking points. These are not figures conjured for a press conference. These are the measurable, auditable, and undeniable fruits of purposeful, people-centred governance under a leader who understands that the ultimate test of political courage is not the decision itself, but what that decision delivers to the people it was made for.
As Kano prepares to host the First Lady of Nigeria and welcome the nation’s attention on April 23, one truth stands clear, unambiguous, and beyond reasonable dispute: Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf did not align with the centre for himself. He did not do it for political survival. He did not do it for personal gain. He did it for Kano. He did it for the market trader, the young graduate, the nursing mother, the struggling entrepreneur, and every ordinary citizen who deserves a government that fights for them at every level of power.

By Mohammed Babagana Abubakar Kano State Coordinator, The Unifier Project April 19, 2026

In the long and complicated history of Nigerian federalism, the relationship between the federal centre and the states has rarely been described as synergistic. It has been described as extractive, as patronising, as politically transactional, and as structurally unequal. States have too often found themselves on the receiving end of a development architecture that took their resources, ignored their priorities, and returned a fraction of their value in the form of federal allocations that barely covered recurrent expenditure. The idea that a state and the federal government could operate as genuine partners, each bringing its own strengths to a shared developmental vision, each amplifying the capacity of the other, has remained, for most of Nigeria’s post-independence history, more aspiration than reality.
What is happening in Kano in April 2026 is different. And it deserves to be understood as such.
Nigeria’s innovation crisis is not a crisis of ideas. It is a crisis of translation. Walk through the corridors of Bayero University Kano, Kano University of Science and Technology Wudil, or Northwest University Kano, and you will find researchers who have spent years, sometimes decades, developing technologies, agricultural innovations, and industrial processes with genuine commercial potential. Ask them how many of those innovations have reached the market, created jobs, or generated revenue for their inventors, and the answer, almost universally, is the same: very few.
The Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology estimates that a substantial proportion of Nigeria’s research and development outputs remain permanently within academic environments, never translated into commercially viable products, industries, or exportable enterprises. This is not a uniquely Nigerian problem. But in a country of 220 million people, with the largest economy in Africa, the largest population of young people on the continent, and a natural resource base of extraordinary diversity and depth, the cost of that translation failure is measured not just in lost economic opportunity but in lost human potential, in the graduate who cannot find work, in the innovator who cannot find capital, and in the entrepreneur who cannot find markets.
The Energise Commercialisation Now initiative, designed and led by the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology under the Honourable Minister Dr. Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh, SAN, and championed personally by Her Excellency Senator Oluremi Tinubu, CON, First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is the Federal Government’s most direct and structured answer to that translation failure. And on April 23, 2026, Kano becomes the national stage on which that answer is first delivered.
What distinguishes ECoN from the long line of federal innovation initiatives that have preceded it is the specificity and coherence of its implementation architecture. This is not a programme that announces ambitious goals and leaves the machinery of delivery undefined. It is a programme with a structured Innovation Commercialisation Pipeline, a National Innovation Asset Register, a sub-national resource mapping framework, dedicated IP advisory sessions, standards and quality clinics, deal rooms, industry matchmaking sessions, and a direct pipeline to international trade platforms including the Intra-African Trade Fair scheduled for 2027.
Each of these components addresses a specific and well-documented failure point in Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem. The sub-national resource mapping framework addresses the chronic disconnect between local assets and national industrial strategy, a disconnect that has allowed Nigeria’s 774 local government areas to sit on enormous concentrations of agricultural wealth, mineral endowments, skilled human capital, and indigenous technology without any systematic mechanism for connecting those assets to the investors, manufacturers, and market intermediaries that could convert them into productive enterprise.
The National Innovation Asset Register addresses the invisibility problem, the fact that Nigeria’s innovators have historically operated without the legal, institutional, and commercial visibility required to attract serious investment. An innovation that has not been documented, evaluated, and registered within a credible national framework is an innovation that exists, for all practical purposes, outside the economy. The register changes that.
The IP advisory sessions address the protection problem. For Kano’s craftsmen, whose leather goods, textile patterns, and agricultural processing techniques represent intellectual property of genuine commercial value, the absence of structured IP protection has meant that their innovations have been replicated and commercialised by others, often in other countries, without any benefit flowing back to the original creators. The ECoN framework, by integrating IP advisory directly into its programme structure, treats intellectual property not as a legal technicality but as an economic asset that the state has a responsibility to protect.
The choice of Kano as the national launch venue for ECoN is not an act of federal charity. It is an act of strategic intelligence. Kano brings to this partnership an economic inheritance and a current governance momentum that few Nigerian states can match.
Historically, Kano’s Kurmi Market, one of the oldest trading centres in West Africa, served as the terminal point of trans-Saharan trade routes connecting sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Its leather industry, anchored on the Kofar Mata dye pits that have operated continuously for over 500 years, represents a living tradition of artisanal innovation that predates the Nigerian state by centuries. Its textile sector, its groundnut processing industry, and its dense network of small and medium enterprises across 44 local government areas represent a commercial culture of extraordinary depth and resilience.
In the present, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s administration has invested with remarkable consistency in building the enabling environment that innovation-driven industrialisation requires. The state’s 2026 budget of N1.477 trillion, the largest in Kano’s history, allocates N405.3 billion to education, N346.2 billion to infrastructure, and N212.2 billion to health. Kano ranked first in Nigeria’s 2025 NECO results, a historic educational achievement underpinned by the recruitment of 400 Mathematics teachers, mass classroom renovations, free basic education, and the establishment of Kano State Polytechnic in Gaya. Over N334 million has been disbursed to 6,680 women entrepreneurs across all 44 local government areas, and more than N800 million has been invested in youth empowerment programmes benefiting over 5,300 young people. These are not background statistics. They are the active ingredients of a state that is ready to receive, deploy, and maximise a federal innovation programme of ECoN’s ambition and scope.
It would be intellectually incomplete to discuss the Abuja-Kano synergy without examining the political decision that created it. Governor Yusuf’s alignment with the Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was not universally welcomed. In a political environment as emotionally charged as Kano’s, where loyalty to the Kwankwasiyya movement had defined political identity for over a decade, the decision to break ranks and chart an independent developmental course attracted fierce criticism and deeply personal accusations of betrayal.
The governor has been consistent and unapologetic in his response. His decision, he has maintained, was not driven by personal ambition or political survival. It was driven by a simple and non-negotiable conviction: that Kano’s 20 million people cannot afford the luxury of principled opposition when principled partnership offers them hospitals, schools, jobs, and industrial investment that opposition cannot deliver.
The ECoN national launch in Kano, coming within months of that alignment, validates that conviction in the most visible and public way possible. A state that was, until recently, watching federal programmes pass it by is now hosting the national inauguration of the Federal Government’s most ambitious innovation initiative, with the First Lady of Nigeria personally in attendance. That is not a coincidence. That is the developmental logic of political alignment producing exactly the outcomes that Governor Yusuf promised his people it would produce.
The ultimate measure of the Abuja-Kano synergy is not the quality of the speeches delivered on April 23, or the size of the crowd at the event, or the number of dignitaries on the high table. It is what happens in Kano’s markets, workshops, factories, and farms in the months and years that follow.
It is whether the leather craftsman in Yan Kaba, whose family has practiced its trade for four generations, can access the IP protection, the quality certification, and the international market connections that will allow him to sell directly to buyers in Milan and Dubai rather than through intermediaries who capture the majority of the value. It is whether the agricultural processor in Gezawa, who has developed an innovative technique for extending the shelf life of groundnut products, can access the standards clinic, the financing, and the industry matchmaking that will allow her to scale from a local operation into an export-ready enterprise. It is whether the engineering graduate from Bayero University, who has spent three years developing a solar-powered water purification system in his family’s backyard, can stand in a deal room on April 24 and walk out with an investment commitment that turns his prototype into a product.
These are the outcomes that the Abuja-Kano synergy must ultimately deliver. They are the outcomes that Governor Yusuf’s Kano First Agenda is designed to support. And they are the outcomes that the Energise Commercialisation Now initiative, if implemented with the discipline, transparency, and follow-through that the moment demands, is structurally equipped to produce.
Kano has been many things in its long and storied history. A commercial crossroads. A centre of Islamic scholarship. A manufacturing hub. A political battleground. A city that has known greatness and felt its erosion with a particular kind of pain that only great cities can feel.
On April 23, 2026, Kano begins a new chapter. Not with the fanfare of a political rally, not with the hollow promises of a campaign season, but with the structured, federal-backed, internationally engaged, and data-driven architecture of an innovation commercialisation programme that treats Kano’s people not as voters to be courted but as producers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and economic actors to be empowered.

The Abuja-Kano synergy is real. Its foundations are solid. Its timing is right. And its potential, for the people of Kano and for the broader project of Nigerian economic transformation, is nothing short of historic.

Kano is ready. The partnership is in place. And the work, the real, lasting, generational work of converting innovation into industry and potential into prosperity, begins now.