Connect with us

Opinion

Kano at the Heart of Nigeria’s Innovation Revolution: Why Sub-National Resource Mapping Matters Now

Published

4 months ago

on

Kano state Map of Nigeria

 

By Najeeb Nasir Ibrahim DG, Unifier Project 19 April 2026

There is a moment in the life of every great city when history and opportunity arrive at the same address, at the same time, and demand an answer. For Kano, that moment is April 23, 2026. On that day, Her Excellency Senator Oluremi Tinubu, CON, First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, will stand in the commercial heartbeat of Northern Nigeria to flag off the Energise Commercialisation Now initiative, a federal programme that carries within it the most ambitious and consequential blueprint for decentralised industrial transformation that this country has attempted in a generation.
For decades, Nigeria’s development architecture has been built on a fundamentally flawed assumption: that economic transformation can be designed, directed, and delivered exclusively from the federal centre. The result of that assumption is visible in every part of the country. Universities full of brilliant graduates producing research that never leaves the laboratory. Agricultural communities harvesting commodities that travel hundreds of kilometres to be processed elsewhere, returning as finished goods at prices that bear no relationship to the value that local hands created. Industrial estates, once productive and purposeful, standing as monuments to the gap between policy intention and economic reality.
Nigeria is not a poor country. It is a country that has consistently failed to convert its wealth into wellbeing, its potential into production, and its knowledge into commercial power. The distance between what Nigeria has and what Nigeria does with what it has is the central economic problem of our time. And the answer to that problem, as the Energise Commercialisation Now initiative correctly identifies, does not lie in Abuja alone. It lies in Kano, in Kaduna, in Sokoto, in Kebbi, in Jigawa, in Katsina, and in Zamfara. It lies in the 774 local government areas of this federation, where the real economic activity of 220 million people actually happens.
The concept of sub-national economic and resource mapping sits at the intellectual core of the ECoN initiative, and it deserves a more precise explanation than it typically receives in policy documents and press releases.
Resource mapping, in this context, is not simply a geological survey or an agricultural inventory. It is a comprehensive strategic framework designed to identify, organise, and connect every category of productive asset within a state or local government area, including indigenous technologies developed in informal workshops, academic research sitting unpublished in university repositories, skilled human capital that has never been matched to an appropriate industry, natural endowments that have never been processed beyond their raw state, and entrepreneurial energy that has never been channelled into structured enterprise.
The goal is to create what the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology describes as a National Innovation Asset Register, an integrated, living database that maps local strengths against national industrial priorities and identifies the specific interventions, whether financing, technology transfer, standards certification, or market access, required to convert each asset from potential into production.
For a state like Kano, whose economic assets span ancient leather craft traditions, a dense network of small and medium enterprises across 44 local government areas, three major universities conducting active research, a N1.477 trillion state budget with 68 percent allocated to capital projects, and an agricultural hinterland producing groundnuts, sorghum, millet, and cowpea across millions of hectares, the creation of such a register is not an administrative exercise. It is an economic revolution in its earliest and most critical stage.
Kano does not come to this conversation as a passive participant or a grateful recipient of federal attention. It comes as a city with a 500-year commercial pedigree, a proven capacity for enterprise, and a state government that has already been doing the foundational work that makes innovation-driven industrialisation possible.
Consider the evidence. Under Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s administration, Kano ranked first in Nigeria’s 2025 NECO results, a milestone that signals a transformation in the quality of human capital the state is producing for its economy. The administration has recruited 400 Mathematics teachers, established Kano State Polytechnic in Gaya to expand technical and vocational education in the state’s southern corridor, and invested N405.3 billion in education within its 2026 budget alone. It has planted over 5.5 million trees under its Climate Change Policy, approved 11 mini-dams to support year-round agricultural production, and procured 199,000 bags of fertiliser for distribution to farmers. It has cleared N32 billion in pension backlogs, trained 2,000 Neighbourhood Watch operatives for community security, and disbursed over N334 million directly to 6,680 women entrepreneurs across all 44 local government areas.
These are not disconnected welfare gestures. They are the deliberate construction of an enabling environment for exactly the kind of innovation-driven industrialisation that ECoN is designed to accelerate. A sub-national resource mapping exercise arriving in a state with functional schools, improved security, empowered women entrepreneurs, and a government committed to agricultural productivity is a mapping exercise that will find real assets, not empty promises.
One of the most economically consequential arguments embedded in the ECoN framework is its emphasis on regional value addition, and it is an argument that Kano’s history makes more powerfully than any policy document can.
For generations, the economic tragedy of Northern Nigeria has been the export of raw materials and the import of finished goods. Kano’s groundnut farmers have watched their harvest leave the state as unprocessed commodity and return as refined oil at prices that enrich processors elsewhere. Its leather craftsmen have seen raw hides travel to tanneries in other cities and come back as finished goods that command international prices the original producers never see. Its cotton farmers have supplied raw fibre to textile mills that, when they were still operating, captured the majority of the value chain’s economic benefit.
The ECoN framework’s insistence on processing and manufacturing at the source represents a direct challenge to that extractive economic model. By connecting Kano’s raw material producers with the technologies, the financing, and the market linkages required to process their outputs locally, the programme creates the conditions for a fundamental redistribution of economic value within the North West. More jobs created locally. More revenue retained within the state. More enterprises built around Kano’s natural and agricultural endowments. More young people employed in productive industries rather than idle in urban centres.
The ripple effects of that redistribution, sustained over a period of years, are the difference between a city that hosts commerce and a city that drives it.
The ECoN initiative’s ambition does not stop at the borders of the North West. One of its explicitly stated objectives is to prepare Nigerian innovators, startups, and SMEs for international trade platforms, including the Intra-African Trade Fair scheduled for 2027. That objective places Kano’s entrepreneurs, quite literally, on a pathway to continental and global markets.
The African Continental Free Trade Area, which came into force in 2021 and represents a combined market of 1.3 billion people and a GDP of approximately three trillion dollars, remains, for most Nigerian SMEs, an abstract aspiration rather than a practical opportunity. The gap between aspiration and opportunity is filled by exactly the kind of structured support that ECoN provides: standards certification, intellectual property protection, export readiness training, investment facilitation, and access to the institutional networks that make international trade possible for enterprises that would otherwise navigate it alone.
For Kano, whose merchants have been trading across international boundaries for five centuries, the prospect of reconnecting that commercial tradition to a structured, government-backed, and internationally recognised framework for African trade is not merely exciting. It is historically resonant.
It would be intellectually dishonest to discuss Kano’s hosting of the ECoN national launch without acknowledging the political context that made it possible. Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s decision to align Kano State with the Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was, and remains, a subject of vigorous political debate. But beneath the political noise lies a developmental logic that this moment validates with striking clarity.
A state in productive alignment with the federal centre is a state that can nominate its priority innovations for national programmes, mobilise its stakeholders for federal platforms, host engagements that connect its entrepreneurs to national and international investors, and position its industrial clusters for the federal attention and investment that can reverse decades of decline. That is precisely what Kano is doing on April 23. And the people who will benefit most from it are not politicians. They are the innovator in Fagge, the female entrepreneur in Nasarawa, the agricultural processor in Gezawa, and the young graduate in Ungogo who has spent years waiting for a structured opportunity to match his talent.
What Kano is demonstrating, through the hosting of this initiative, is something that every state government in Nigeria needs to study and internalise: that the future of Nigeria’s prosperity is not a centralised project. It is a distributed one. It is built state by state, local government by local government, enterprise by enterprise, and innovation by innovation. The federal government can provide the framework, the financing, and the convening power. But the actual work of converting Nigeria’s extraordinary natural and human endowments into commercial and industrial wealth must happen at the sub-national level, driven by state governments with the vision, the capacity, and the political will to lead.
Kano has that vision. It has demonstrated that capacity. And under Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, it is exercising that political will with a consistency and a purposefulness that is already producing measurable results.
Nigeria’s innovation revolution will not be won in a single federal ministry or announced in a single presidential executive order. It will be won in the markets of Kano, the workshops of Aba, the farms of Benue, the fishing communities of Bayelsa, and the technology hubs of Lagos. It will be won by the collective energy of a nation that has finally, through initiatives like ECoN, begun to recognise and systematically harness the extraordinary economic intelligence embedded within its states and local communities.
Kano’s moment is here. And if properly harnessed, with the state government’s commitment to enabling infrastructure, human capital investment, and federal partnership providing the foundation, this moment will not be remembered merely as a successful event. It will be remembered as the day Kano reclaimed its place at the centre of Nigeria’s economic story, and began writing the next chapter with the confidence, the competence, and the conviction that the chapter deserves.

Advert

Related Topics:

Opinion

Rabe Darma’s First 100 Days: Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Housing Renaissance

Published

4 days ago

on

August 5, 2026

By

By Ahmad Danyaro
Housing is more than bricks and mortar. It is about dignity, economic opportunity, social stability, and national development. Countries that have transformed their housing sectors have not merely built homes; they have built systems that make homeownership accessible, urban development sustainable, and investments attractive. Nigeria has long struggled to achieve these ideals, but the first 100 days of Engr. Dr. Muttaqha Rabe Darma as Honourable Minister of Housing and Urban Development have offered encouraging signs that a new era may be unfolding.
Since assuming office on 27 April , Dr. Darma has approached Nigeria’s housing challenge with a clear understanding that lasting solutions require more than commissioning housing estates. Rather, they demand comprehensive reforms that address the structural barriers responsible for decades of inadequate housing delivery. His administration has focused on land administration, investment promotion, institutional coordination, industry regulation, and social inclusion—areas that form the bedrock of a sustainable housing sector.
One of the defining initiatives of his first 100 days is the proposed nationwide Social Housing Programme, designed to extend affordable housing to all 774 Local Government Areas of the federation. The programme represents one of the most ambitious efforts to decentralise housing delivery in Nigeria’s history. If effectively implemented, it has the potential not only to reduce the country’s huge housing deficit but also to stimulate local economies through construction activities, job creation, and infrastructure development.
Equally significant is the programme’s emphasis on social inclusion. By prioritising women, children, victims of insecurity, internally displaced persons, and communities affected by natural disasters, the Minister has demonstrated that housing policy must also serve as social policy. In a nation grappling with displacement caused by insecurity and climate-related disasters, such an approach reflects both compassion and strategic thinking.
Within his first 100 days, Dr. Darma has also underscored the indispensable role of private-sector participation in addressing Nigeria’s housing deficit. Recognising that government resources alone cannot meet the nation’s housing needs, he has actively engaged international investors and development partners. His discussions with Japan’s CHODAI Company Limited and other prospective partners signal Nigeria’s renewed commitment to attracting global expertise, innovative technology, and long-term financing into the housing and infrastructure sectors.
Across the world, successful housing programmes are anchored on strong Public-Private Partnerships. By assuring investors that Nigeria remains open for business and committed to creating an enabling environment, the Minister is laying the groundwork for increased investment capable of accelerating housing delivery and modern urban development.
Perhaps the most transformative aspect of his reform agenda is the renewed focus on land administration.
For decades, access to land has remained one of the greatest obstacles to affordable housing in Nigeria. Lengthy registration processes, insecure titles, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and ownership disputes have discouraged investment while placing homeownership beyond the reach of many citizens. Dr. Darma’s commitment to the Nigerian Land Titling, Registration and Documentation Programme (NLTRDP) represents a bold effort to tackle these long-standing challenges.
The proposed digitalisation of land records, deployment of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), electronic documentation, and the establishment of a more efficient land administration framework promise to improve transparency, shorten processing timelines, and restore confidence in land ownership. These reforms may not generate the excitement of housing commissioning ceremonies, but they are precisely the institutional changes capable of transforming the sector over the long term.
The Minister has also demonstrated commendable resolve in addressing the persistent challenge of building collapses through stronger regulation of Nigeria’s built environment. His insistence on ending quackery, enforcing professional standards, and strengthening regulatory oversight reflects a commitment to safeguarding lives and restoring confidence in the construction industry.
By advocating a coordinated regulatory framework involving all professional bodies and stakeholders, Dr. Darma is reinforcing the principle that sustainable development must be underpinned by professionalism, accountability, and strict compliance with building standards.
Institutional efficiency has equally featured prominently in his first 100 days. Through engagements with Federal Controllers of Housing across the federation, the Minister has emphasized improved project monitoring, stronger inter-agency coordination, and enhanced accountability in project execution. These administrative reforms may receive less public attention, but they are essential to translating policy into measurable outcomes.
Naturally, the true test of any administration lies not in policy announcements but in implementation. Nigerians have witnessed ambitious programmes in the past that faltered due to inadequate funding, bureaucratic delays, weak political will, or inconsistent execution. The reforms initiated during these first 100 days must therefore be sustained through transparency, measurable targets, stakeholder collaboration, and rigorous monitoring.Even so, the direction being charted deserves recognition.
For perhaps the first time in many years, national conversations on housing are moving beyond the mere construction of houses towards broader institutional reforms encompassing land governance, digital transformation, investment attraction, professional regulation, and inclusive urban development. This holistic approach aligns more closely with global best practices and recognises housing as both a social necessity and a catalyst for economic growth.
Housing remains one of the strongest multipliers in any economy. It drives manufacturing, construction, transportation, financial services, and numerous small businesses while generating employment across multiple sectors. A vibrant housing industry strengthens communities, improves living standards, and contributes significantly to national development.
In his first 100 days, Engr. Dr. Muttaqha Rabe Darma has outlined an ambitious roadmap for the sector. His priorities are becoming increasingly clear, and his early interventions suggest a willingness to confront some of the most difficult structural challenges that have hindered Nigeria’s housing development for decades.
The journey ahead will undoubtedly be demanding. Expectations remain high, resources are limited, and implementation will ultimately determine the success of these reforms. However, if the momentum generated during these first 100 days is sustained with consistency, professionalism, and accountability, Nigeria’s housing sector could be on the threshold of a genuine transformation.
For millions of Nigerians who still dream of owning a decent and affordable home, that is a vision worth supportingand one that deserves every opportunity to succeed.
Danyaro is a Media and Public Affairs Analysts based in Abuja.

Advert

Continue Reading

Opinion

WARAKA: The Story of Kano Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC)

Published

6 days ago

on

August 3, 2026

By

 

A Story by Nurse Ekwem Chinwendu Blessing (BNSC, RPHN, RM, RN)

I was out on my routine duty at Murtala Specialist Hospital for my ambulance service when I decided to take a walk to a centre I had heard about from Sir Muhammad Sunusi Specialist Hospital Accident and Emergency Unit. The centre is called WARAKA–SARC — ‘Waraka’ meaning ‘healing’ in the English language. It is housed in the same building with the Kano State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency (KSCHMA), a beautiful block within Murtala Specialist Hospital. The centre comprises three offices and two toilets. Inside, the offices are adorned with colourful posters of alphabets, numbers, GBV survivors support, pathway for initial care after sexual assaults and domestic animals and pets, creating a quiet and therapeutic atmosphere. The staff are warm and friendly.

The centre was sponsored by non-governmental organisation’s (NGOs) and championed by four ministries in the state: the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the State Police Force. Unfortunately, the NGOs have since pulled out. WARAKA–SARC attends to cases of sexual assault and gender-based violence for both males and females. I was informed that between 7 and 12 September 2015, training was conducted for doctors, nurses, and counsellors on the management of such cases. Due to the high rate of reported incidents, the NGOs and the four aforementioned ministries pushed for the official opening of the centre.

During my visit, I met several members of staff: a nurse nearing retirement, counsellors, a receptionist, and a volunteer who also serves as the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. She conducts serological tests such as pregnancy test (serum), HIV, HBsAg, HCV, and VDRL. I had expected to see a doctor trained to assist with forensic examinations, but none was present. I was told that doctors had indeed been trained to provide evidence-based care to clients; however, due to the high demand for medical personnel, they were redeployed to other hospitals and units. Due to that, When a client presents — whether as a case of domestic violence or assault — they are referred to the Gynaecology Emergency Unit, the Gynaecology Ward, the Accident and Emergency Unit, or the Paediatric Unit, depending on the client’s age and the nature of the assault. Following examination, the client returns to WARAKA–SARC for further management, including counselling and serology. On average, the centre sees about fifty clients per week.

Advert

Notwithstanding these challenges, this is the only functioning centre in the state that attends to cases of sexual assault and gender-based violence. I noted that all services rendered to clients are free of charge, and the centre also provides continuous follow-up care.

Based on my observation, WARAKA–SARC is a sensitive and vital centre. I therefore suggest the following measures to improve the care and services provided to clients:

· The deployment of medical personnel — including doctors, nurses, and counselling psychologists — to the centre.

· The four ministries should consistently include the centre in their annual budgets.

· Continuous engagement of staff through training, rural outreach programmes, community sensitisation, and the provision of incentives.

· NGOs should resume and sustain their collaboration with the centre.

· Proper referral pathways for clients to the centre must be established and maintained.

· The Ministry of Justice should make it mandatory for all cases of sexual assault and gender-based violence to pass through WARAKA–SARC before trial. This will enhance the centre’s visibility among individuals and communities.

· Additional centres should be established in strategic local government areas to bring services closer to rural communities far from Kano town, thereby improving access and utilisation.

· Community enlightenment on the importance of the centre and the need to seek help freely when necessary.

· Religious and community leaders should partner with the centre to promote peace and encourage community members to utilise its services.

 

Speak out, get help — end the cycle of violence.

WARAKA SARC: Your path to healing and justice.

Stop GBV. Support survivors. Strengthen justice.

WARAKA SARC: Restoring dignity, rebuilding lives.

Supporting survivors with care, dignity, and compassion.

WARAKA SARC — A Safe Space for Healing.

 

WARAKA–SARC HOTLINES

0903 042 4123

0902 894 4933

SAY NO TO GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

END VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN

Continue Reading

Opinion

How Kano Digitized Land Turns N50m to N750m Monthly

Published

6 days ago

on

August 3, 2026

By

 

– Abba Ka Cika Gwarzo…

By Abba Anwar

Land administration, safety and security of land documents are dancing gorgeously to the gallery, as the administration of His Excellency, Executive Governor of Kano State, Abba Kabir Yusuf digitalized and institutionalized land administration and ownership in the last three years.

Study tour to Kano Geographic Information System (KANGIS), by states like Abia, Kaduna, Jigawa, Adamawa, among others is a clear testimony that Kano is making headway with excellent innovations in land administration and management. Analog to digital development.

Before now, KANGIS was a small unit /department under the state Ministry of Land and Physical Planning. But when Governor Yusuf came on board, the agency turned into full-fledged and autonomous agency with the establishment Law. Normal legislative procedures were followed. And now an independent agency. This makes seamless operations possible. With clear mandate and global taste.

Billions of Naira injected in overhauling and modernizing the agency, were recovered within six months of becoming an autonomous agency. With full Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure which turned the face of the agency via digital and GIS infrastructures, pave the way for that.

Employing GIS enterprise, that is modernizing land administration, beginning from land application to the level of acquiring Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) has now become a seamless operation. Where slow operation fades away.

For Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) the agency was generating a maximum of Fifty Million Naira (N50m) monthly. With the new Law in place and dedicated leadership, from His Excellency down to the Director General of the agency, Dr Dalhatu Aliyu Sani, and dedicated staff, KANGIS can now boost of generating a maximum of up to Seven Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N750m) monthly.

Racketeering of land documents by touts and weak minded internal elements, has significantly minimized. A system has now been in place for a land applicant to monitor the movement and progress of his or her application from the comfort of one’s room.

Advert

There is an improved manpower, who are always undergoing training and retraining. To cope with the global best practice. With this and the digitalization of the agency, corruption is being reduced to minimal level in the administration and management of land. So also laziness from the part of the staff, unproductive posture, double allocation and insecured process for land ownership are all shelved aside.

Under the wisdom of His Excellency, the Governor, the agency, KANGIS, works hand in hand with the state ministry for land and physical planning. Unlike in some other states, where such agencies wall out ministries of land. Not only maintaining the two institutions, in Kano, both the agency and the ministry work harmoniously in rancour-free atmosphere.

Though land ministry is the mother ministry, but rivalry between them is significantly at the lowest level. It may interest one to know that all payments of the ministry are paid through KANGIS.

The Director General of KANGIS Dr Sani is a renown scholar of geographic information system of global repute, who was invited by Governor Yusuf from far away Turkey, to come and serve his state. Without hesitation, Dr Sani responded positively to His Excellency’s request. Here he is, Dr Sani brought many strategies and innovations to KANGIS. The political will of the Governor helps much in this development. That has eluded the agency since its creation in 2012.

Understanding the genuine political will and commitment of the Governor towards the spirit development of the agency, the good working relationship between all the political appointees and staff of the agency and the mother ministry, is strengthening day in day out. They all understand what team work is to the development of the state.

Ranging from the Commissioner for Land and Physical Planning, Abudujjabar Muhammad Umar, Adviser to the Governor on Land Matters, Hadiza Gadanya, Director General of KANGIS, Dr Dalhatu Aliyu Sani, Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Land Matters, Alhaji Ahmad down to the Senior Special Reporter Nanu Kankarofi, all believe and understand what team work is and what Governor Yusuf wants in reshaping land administration, control and ownership in the state. Kudos to them all.

Another important picture of Governor’s genuine love for a new Kano is his non-interference in KANGIS’s operations and technical decisions. Being an autonomous with competent hand as the Director General, Governor Yusuf believes he puts a square peg in a square hole. At KANGIS and the mother ministry, modernization with global touch is quite visible. It was this visibility, I guessed, that prompted other states to come to Kano and start shopping for ingenious land administration.

I can still remember vividly clear, when the immediate past Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Ahmad Dangiwa visited KANGIS sometime back, he informed the DG that when he returned back to Abuja, he would inform President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to kindly urge other states of the federation to come to Kano and visit KANGIS for them to replicate Kano model of land administration. I don’t know if that really happened.

With the full operation and commitment of KANGIS and Land Ministry, Kano Master Plan of over 30 years is now being undusted and ready to be revisited word by word. This is possible as a result of Governor Yusuf’s political will and commitment.

Anwar writes from Kano
Monday, 3rd August, 2026

Continue Reading

Trending