By Saminu Umar Ph.D | Senior Lecturer, Department of Information and Media Studies, Bayero University, Kano surijyarzaki@gmail.com

In the theatre of governance, the spotlight almost always falls on the principal actor. It is the governor who addresses the crowd, signs the executive orders, and takes the applause or the criticism that public policy inevitably attracts. But anyone who has spent serious time studying how governments actually work, as distinct from how they appear to work, understands a more layered truth: behind every bold agenda that changes a society, there is almost always a bolder mind working in the background, thinking harder, longer, and more deeply than the public ever gets to see. In the story of the Kano First Initiative, that mind belongs to Comrade Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya, the Honourable Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs of Kano State.
To describe Comrade Waiya merely as the Commissioner responsible for information is to dramatically undersell both the man and his contribution to what may yet prove to be the most significant social governance initiative in Kano’s recent history. The “Kano First” policy and implementation framework for social and institutional reorientation in Kano State, which aims at actualizing the governor’s inner vision did not emerge from a committee meeting or a consultant’s brief. It emerged from the sustained intellectual labor, strategic vision, and personal conviction of a commissioner who understood, long before it became fashionable to say so, that Kano’s deepest challenges were not infrastructural but normative, not economic but behavioral, not material but spiritual and cultural.
That understanding, rooted in both professional experience and genuine love for Kano, is what distinguishes the Kano First Initiative from the dozens of government programmes that are announced with ceremony and forgotten within months. Most government communication frameworks are reactive, designed to manage crises, counter criticism, and project positive imagery. Comrade Waiya’s contribution was to insist on something far more ambitious: a proactive, evidence-based, values-driven social intervention that deploys strategic communication not as a tool of propaganda, but as an instrument of genuine governance and societal transformation.
The intellectual architecture of the Kano First Initiative bears his fingerprints at every level. The decision to anchor the framework in Islamic ethical governance, drawing on the same moral traditions that historically sustained Kano’s civilization, reflects a deep understanding of how lasting social change is actually achieved in this society. Change that is imported, imposed, or disconnected from the lived values of a community generates resistance and eventually collapses. Change that is rooted in a community’s own traditions, its own sense of identity and aspiration, generates ownership and sustainability. Comrade Waiya understood this, and the framework he championed reflects that understanding with precision and care.
Equally significant is the framework’s integration of modern behavioral change communication science, an integration that speaks to a commissioner who did not merely rely on intuition or political instinct, but who engaged seriously with the global evidence base on how societies actually change their norms and behaviors. The inclusion of the Information, Education, and Communication model, interpersonal communication strategies, entertainment-education approaches, peer-to-peer messaging, and digital platform engagement reflects a sophisticated awareness of how contemporary audiences, and particularly youth, actually receive and process information. This is not the thinking of a bureaucrat managing a ministry. It is the thinking of a strategist reshaping a society.
It is worth pausing here to appreciate the particular difficulty of the assignment that Comrade Waiya took on. Developing a credible, comprehensive, and institutionally serious policy framework requires not just intelligence, but patience, persistence, and the willingness to do unglamorous work over an extended period. There are no rallies to address when you are reviewing research methodologies. There are no headlines generated when you are refining a stakeholder engagement matrix or developing a monitoring and evaluation framework. The work of genuine policy architecture is invisible by its very nature, and that invisibility is precisely why so few people do it well and why those who do it deserve recognition.
Comrade Waiya did this work. He did it assiduously, thoroughly, and, as those who have worked closely with him will attest, with a level of personal commitment that went well beyond the formal requirements of his office. The Kano First Initiative, in its current form, is a document that can withstand academic scrutiny, survive editorial examination, and hold its own in comparison with social governance frameworks from far more resourced environments. That is not an accident. It is the product of deliberate, disciplined, and sustained intellectual effort.
But Comrade Waiya’s contribution to the Kano First Initiative is not only intellectual. It is also political, in the most constructive sense of that word. Translating a policy vision into an institutional reality requires navigating a complex landscape of competing interests, bureaucratic inertia, resource constraints, and the inevitable skepticism of those who have seen too many government programmes launched with fanfare and abandoned without accountability. The commissioner’s role in securing the political space for this initiative to be developed, refined, and formally adopted as a state government framework required a combination of strategic judgment, interpersonal skill, and institutional authority that is not easily acquired and not casually deployed.
It is in this context that the honorific that has begun to attach itself to Comrade Waiya in informed circles, Limamin Kano First Agenda, carries genuine meaning. In Hausa cultural tradition, the title of Limam denotes not merely leadership, but a particular kind of leadership: one that is earned through knowledge, respected through conduct, and legitimized through service to a community’s highest values. To be recognized as the Imam of the Kano First Agenda is to be acknowledged as the person who has done the most to give it intellectual coherence, institutional form, and moral seriousness. On all three counts, that recognition is fully deserved.
None of this diminishes the role of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, whose personal interest in and commitment to the Kano First Initiative provides the political authority and executive backing without which no policy framework, however brilliant, can move from document to action. The governor’s vision created the space. The commissioner’s intellect and labor filled it with substance. Great governance requires both, and Kano is fortunate, at this particular moment in its history, to have both operating in alignment.
What the people of Kano, and the broader public, owe Comrade Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya at this juncture is not merely acknowledgement, important as that is. What they owe him is engagement. The Kano First Initiative will only achieve its transformative potential if the ideas it contains are understood, owned, and acted upon by the citizens, institutions, media organizations, religious leaders, traditional authorities, civil society actors, and private sector players whose participation it calls for. The commissioner has done his part. The document has been produced. The framework has been developed. The question that now confronts every stakeholder is whether they will meet the seriousness of this effort with equal seriousness of their own.

History records the names of those who build. It is a long and honorable list, and it includes, prominently and deservedly, the name of the man who gave the Kano First Initiative its intellectual spine, its institutional credibility, and its moral ambition. Comrade Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya did not merely support a bold agenda. He was, in every meaningful sense, the bolder mind behind it.

By Saminu Umar Ph.D | Senior Lecturer, Department of Information and Media Studies, Bayero University, Kano. surijyarzaki@gmail.com

There is a moment in the life of every consequential leader when the demands of the present collide with the responsibilities of the future, and the leader must choose which master to serve. For Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State, that moment appears to have arrived quietly, without fanfare, in the form of a policy document that carries a deceptively simple title: the Kano First Initiative. It is a document that deserves far more public attention than it has so far received, because what it represents is not merely another government programme, but a fundamental rethinking of what governance in Kano State is actually for.
Most governors build roads. Most governors commission hospitals and schools. Most governors cut ribbons and hold press conferences. Governor Yusuf is doing all of those things, but the Kano First Initiative signals that he is also attempting something far more difficult and far more consequential: he is trying to rebuild the moral and social architecture of a society that has, over decades of misgovernance, institutional neglect, and cultural erosion, lost significant confidence in itself and in its institutions. That is not a small ambition. It is, by any measure, an audacious one.
To understand why this initiative matters so profoundly, one must first understand the depth of the problem it is trying to solve. Kano is not merely facing economic underdevelopment or infrastructural deficit, serious as those challenges are. Kano is facing what the Kano First policy framework correctly identifies as a normative and behavioral crisis, a crisis of values. The evidence is not difficult to find. Youth disaffection has reached levels that manifest in drug abuse, street violence, and political thuggery. Civic responsibility, once a hallmark of Kano’s communal identity, has weakened dramatically. Institutional trust is at historic lows. And the digital media ecosystem, rather than serving as a tool of enlightenment, has in too many instances become a vehicle for misinformation, polarization, and moral dislocation.
These are not superficial problems. They are the accumulated wounds of a society that was promised development and received instead a succession of administrations that looted its treasury, hollowed out its institutions, and left its citizens, particularly its youth, with neither opportunity nor direction. The Kano First Initiative is Governor Yusuf’s response to that inheritance. And it is, on close examination, a remarkably sophisticated one.
What makes the initiative intellectually serious, rather than merely rhetorically ambitious, is its grounding in three converging traditions that give it both cultural legitimacy and analytical credibility. The first is Islamic ethical governance, the recognition that Kano’s historical strength was built on a moral order that placed trust, justice, accountability, and knowledge at the center of public life. The second is Kano’s own sociocultural heritage, a heritage of communal responsibility, respect for legitimate authority, and the dignity of productive labor. The third is the modern science of behavioral change communication, the evidence-based understanding that sustainable social transformation requires not just legislation and enforcement, but the deliberate reshaping of norms, narratives, and perceived expectations.
By weaving these three traditions together into a single policy architecture, the Kano First Initiative achieves something that is genuinely rare in Nigerian state governance: it offers a framework that is simultaneously rooted in local culture, consistent with religious values, and informed by global best practice. It does not import foreign solutions and impose them on Kano’s social landscape. It excavates Kano’s own historical foundations, the Islamic scholarship, the trading ethics, the communal solidarity, and proposes to rebuild on them. That is not just good policy. It is good politics. And it is, above all, honest.
The honesty of the initiative deserves particular emphasis, because it is rare. The policy document, produced under the intellectual stewardship of the Hon. Commissioner, Ministry of Information and Internal Affairs, does not pretend that Kano’s problems are small or that they will yield quickly to government intervention. It acknowledges, plainly and without evasion, that the state faces systemic value erosion, a rapidly expanding and underserved youth population, a strained educational system, and the corrosive effects of an unregulated digital information environment. It then proposes, with appropriate humility, that the response to these challenges must be long-term, evidence-driven, inclusive, and adaptive. A government that speaks this honestly about the scale of its challenges is a government that has earned the right to be taken seriously.
The four-phase implementation architecture, stretching from 2026 through 2030, is itself a statement of seriousness. Phase One builds the empirical foundation: baseline surveys, perception mapping, institutional readiness assessments, and the development of a master narrative framework. Phase Two moves into intensive multi-channel engagement, coordinated media campaigns, deep youth programming, and structured partnerships with religious and traditional institutions. Phase Three scales what works and deepens digital operations. Phase Four embeds the initiative permanently into Kano’s governance architecture through a dedicated directorate and an annual Kano Values Index. This is not the timeline of a government chasing headlines. It is the timeline of a government genuinely committed to transformation.
It would be intellectually dishonest, and professionally irresponsible, to celebrate this initiative without also acknowledging the risks it carries. The gap between policy ambition and implementation reality is, in Nigerian governance, historically vast. Funding constraints, political resistance, bureaucratic inertia, and the ever-present temptation to reduce a values-based initiative to a publicity campaign are all genuine threats to the Kano First Initiative’s success. The framework itself acknowledges these risks, and that acknowledgement is reassuring. But acknowledgement alone is not mitigation. The governor and his team will need to demonstrate, through visible, consistent, and measurable action, that the words of this document are matched by the deeds of his administration.
They will also need to guard against the inevitable attempt by political opportunists, within and outside the administration, to colonize the initiative’s brand without contributing to its substance. A values restoration agenda that becomes associated with political self-promotion rather than genuine civic renewal will lose the public trust it is trying to build before it has even fully established it. The integrity of the initiative must be protected with the same vigilance with which its content was developed.
And yet, with all those caveats duly registered, it remains the considered judgment of this writer that the Kano First Initiative represents the most intellectually serious and socially ambitious governance commitment that Kano State has seen in a very long time. It asks the right questions. It draws on the right foundations. It proposes the right methods. And it is backed by a governor who, whatever his political critics may say, has demonstrated a genuine willingness to make difficult and courageous decisions in the interest of Kano’s long-term future.
History will ultimately judge Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf not by the roads he built or the contracts he awarded, but by whether he succeeded in restoring Kano’s confidence in itself. The Kano First Initiative is his most audacious attempt to do precisely that. If it is implemented with fidelity, and if the people of Kano claim it as their own rather than leaving it to government alone, it may well be remembered as the defining achievement of his administration. Not a legacy of concrete and asphalt, but a legacy of restored values, rebuilt trust, and a society reoriented toward its own greatness. That, in the final analysis, is what great governance looks like.

Saminu Umar Ph.D is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information and Media Studies, Bayero University, Kano.

By Lamara Garba

A deep wave of disbelief and sorrow swept through Bayero University, Kano the moment the tragic news began to circulate. Offices fell unusually silent, lectures paused in uneasy whispers, and clusters of staff and students gathered across the campus seeking confirmation of what many feared was true.

Faces reflected shock and grief as the heartbreaking news filtered through the university community that Professor Kabiru Isa Dandago had passed away. For many, it felt almost unreal that a man whose presence symbolised humility, warmth and intellectual guidance within the institution was suddenly gone.

Professor Kabiru Isa Dandago passed away on Wednesday, 4th March 2026, at the age of 63, leaving behind a legacy defined by scholarship, service and compassion. His departure represents not only the loss of a distinguished Professor of Accounting but also the passing of a man whose life was devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, mentorship and the upliftment of others.

Indeed, his passing marks the quiet departure of a quintessential Dandago, a man whose life was woven with simplicity, sincerity and uncommon generosity.

Those who knew him closely often spoke first of his character before mentioning his impressive academic achievements. Despite his towering reputation as a scholar, Professor Dandago remained remarkably approachable. His friendliness was genuine, his humility disarming and his conduct consistently reflected deep respect for others. Titles and positions never created barriers between him and the people around him.

Whether engaging senior colleagues, junior staff members or students, he displayed the same warmth and simplicity that endeared him to many. Above all, he was deeply God fearing. His life reflected strong moral values rooted in faith, sincerity and compassion. In him, intellect walked hand in hand with humility, and knowledge was always guided by conscience.

His acts of altruistic benevolence knew no bounds.

Just about a week before his passing, an incident occurred that now carries deep emotional significance. Members of our Non Governmental Organization, the Raa’ayi Initiative for Human Development, were mobilising resources for one of our humanitarian traditions. The organisation periodically raises funds to purchase food items for families of deceased colleagues who may be struggling silently after losing their loved ones.

Professor Dandago was among the first to respond.

Not only did he send his contribution promptly, his donation turned out to be the highest among more than one hundred members of Raa’ayi Initiative. Even after making his personal contribution, he encouraged other members to support the project so that the target could be achieved and the families assisted meaningfully.

Unknown to him, he was making what would become his final contribution to the Raa’ayi project.

Today, that gesture stands as a powerful reflection of the generosity that defined his life. The man who was helping families of deceased colleagues did not know that he himself would soon be mourned by the same community. In giving comfort to others, he was unknowingly writing the final line of his own story of kindness.

Within Bayero University Kano, his influence was both profound and lasting. One of the enduring legacies associated with him is the strong mentoring culture within the Faculty of Management Sciences, formerly the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences. Several years ago, he played an important role in strengthening a mentoring system that has since guided many young academics and students.

He believed firmly that institutions grow when experienced scholars patiently guide younger minds. Many lecturers today acknowledge that their professional journeys were shaped by his advice, encouragement and fatherly support.

Another notable contribution under his influence was the introduction of the student ICAN programme. Through this initiative, students were encouraged to pursue professional certification with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria while still undertaking their undergraduate studies. Today, more than fifty students have successfully obtained ICAN qualifications alongside their degrees, reflecting Professor Dandago’s vision of producing graduates who are both academically sound and professionally competitive.

According to the Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences, Professor Muhammad Aminu Isa, the faculty has lost a great pillar whose presence contributed immensely to unity and stability. He noted that Professor Dandago consistently worked towards strengthening cooperation among staff while always seeking ways to advance the growth and progress of the faculty and the university.

Born on April 5, 1963, in Dandago Quarters of Gwale Local Government Area of Kano State, he joined Bayero University in September 1990 and rose through the ranks to become Professor of Accounting in 2007. Over more than three decades of service, he held several academic and administrative positions including Head of the Department of Accounting and later Dean of the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences.

A prolific scholar, he authored over thirty books and published more than eighty five academic articles while supervising numerous postgraduate students, including doctoral candidates. His intellectual contributions extended beyond the university, as he also served as Federal Commissioner at the Tax Appeal Tribunal and earlier as Commissioner for Finance in Kano State.

Only days before his passing, Professor Dandago delivered what would become his final public lecture. On Saturday, 28th February 2026, he spoke at the 10th Ramadan Lecture organised by the Islamic Forum of Nigeria. In that lecture, he reflected on the pathway to economic development of the northern region, carefully identifying the roots of the region’s economic challenges while proposing thoughtful solutions for sustainable progress.

In mourning the distinguished scholar, the Vice Chancellor of Bayero University Kano, Professor Haruna Musa, fsi, described the late Dandago as a complete gentleman, an honest and committed academic whose contributions significantly shaped the growth and reputation of the university.

The Vice Chancellor noted that Professor Dandago was more than a scholar; he was a mentor and a steady hand in university administration whose calm disposition, integrity and willingness to support colleagues earned him admiration across the institution.

“His passing leaves a vacuum that will be difficult to fill,” Professor Musa said, while praying that Almighty Allah forgives his shortcomings and grants him Aljannatul Firdaus.

Thousands of mourners later gathered for his funeral prayers in Kano, reflecting the deep respect and affection he commanded across academic, professional and community circles.

Yet in reflecting on the life of Professor Kabiru Isa Dandago, one timeless truth quietly emerges. Life is not measured by the length of years alone, but by the depth of the footprints one leaves behind. Some lives pass like fleeting shadows, barely touching the edges of memory. Others, like that of Professor Dandago, glow with purpose, kindness and service, leaving behind a light that continues to guide long after the bearer of the light has gone.

Though his years were sixty three, the influence of his life stretches far beyond the boundaries of time. In the minds he shaped, the hearts he inspired and the values he lived by, the quintessential Dandago will continue to endure.

May Almighty Allah forgive his shortcomings and grant him eternal rest in Aljannatul Firdaus. Ameen.

Lamara Garba, Director of Public Affairs, Bayero University, Kano