For some time now, political spin doctors and merchants of misinformation have sustained a deliberate campaign to divert public attention from the significant developmental progress Katsina State is experiencing. Their intent is to make the Home of Hospitality and its government a subject of politically motivated and baseless conversations.
Governor Umaru Dikko Radda is a performer, not a political talker who gives oxygen to small talk that has no practical basis in improving the security and welfare of Katsina’s people.
Criticism is an important ingredient of democracy, but when it becomes a smear campaign fueled by narrow interests and lack constructive virtue, it becomes a threat to democracy itself.
I don’t work for Governor Radda, but for the record, Governor Umaru Dikko Radda has been intentionally focused on achieving the mandate he was voted in for. So far, he has not betrayed the trust and expectations of Katsina’s people.
Governor Radda has a proven history of public service achievement. His record as Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency speaks for itself. Recognizing that there can be no development in an environment characterized by insecurity, one of his first major steps upon assuming office was establishing the Community Watch Corps to complement other security agencies in addressing insecurity, especially banditry. This innovative move brought about many positive changes to the state’s security architecture.
First, it made locals an integral component of the fight against insecurity. Second, it addressed unemployment issues that some argue contribute to the state’s general insecurity. This remarkable achievement was recognized when Governor Radda was honored at the 18th Africa Security Watch Awards in Doha for his “administration’s exceptional efforts in creating a safer environment for the people of Katsina State.”
The Governor has not rested on his achievements in his resolve to make Katsina State an example of people-oriented development. It is often said that “all politics is local,” thus it is fair to say all development is local. At the core of the state’s development strategy under the Building Your Future administration stewardship has been empowering communities to take charge of their developmental pathway.
I could recall, in a speech delivered at the Oxford Africa Business Forum, demonstrating his administration’s drive to localize development, the governor said: “We pay attention most to community power. That’s engagement with the community, trying to know what the communities are up to, what they need. We may not just sit in our offices and decide for people what they would do. For that, we created what we call a community development program in which everything that has to do with communities is taken to their doorsteps, making sure that the communities are fully engaged in what goes to them, what kind of projects are implemented in the state, how it is done, and the feedback between the state and these communities.”
The people’s Governor, appreciating the importance of private and public sector collaboration, has been working tirelessly, traveling overseas and locally to convince both international and local investors to tap into Katsina State’s endless investment potential, with much success to report. Speaking at the prestigious 3-day summit held from June 12-15, 2025, in Changsha, China, he presented Katsina State’s transformative potential to investors, government officials, and business leaders under the conference theme “China and Africa: Together towards modernization.”
The governor strategically positioned Katsina State as West Africa’s logistics and commercial hub, emphasizing the state’s privileged access to over 400 million people in the ECOWAS market through its international border with Niger Republic. With over 10 million dynamic residents and strategic highway connections to major Nigerian cities, the state offers investors unparalleled market reach.
The question then becomes: why should Governor Umaru Dikko Radda, who has transformed Katsina State into a major construction site and investment hub, pay attention to the distracting opinions of political naysayers who have never acknowledged the numerous developmental strides of his administration? Why are some self-interested actors from the state interested in cheap political gossip about the governor when the people of Katsina State are satisfied with their performing governor? Is it a crime that Governor Radda decided to focus on governance rather than politics when what the people of Katsina State deeply deserve is good governance?
When good governance speaks, the performer remains silent because it is the beneficiaries of good governance, not detractors, whose voices count.
I am Comrade Abdul Ben, I write from the FCT, Abuja.
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