By Dr. Musa Abdullahi Sufi
As Katsina State marks 39 years since its creation on 23 September 1987, the anniversary provides an opportunity not only to celebrate the state’s history, identity and resilience, but also to reflect on the changing character of governance and development in the state.
For nearly four decades, Katsina has evolved through different political, economic and social realities, but its current development conversation presents an important question: How can government make development more responsive to the people, particularly the communities that experience development challenges most directly?
Under the administration of Governor Malam Dikko Umar Radda, one of the most visible answers to that question has been the emphasis on inclusive governance and community-driven development, particularly through the Katsina Community Development Programme (CDP).
Launched in November 2024, the CDP was designed around the principle that development should not be determined entirely from government offices, but should increasingly involve communities in identifying their priorities, shaping interventions and participating in implementation. The programme established structures across all 361 wards in Katsina’s 34 Local Government Areas, creating an institutional mechanism for bringing grassroots perspectives into development planning.
The significance of this approach is much bigger than the implementation of individual community projects. It represents a different way of thinking about the relationship between the state and its citizens. Instead of assuming that government always knows what every community needs, the model creates space for communities to articulate their priorities and participate in determining solutions.
This is particularly relevant in a state as geographically and socially diverse as Katsina, where the development needs of one ward may be very different from those of another. Inclusive governance therefore becomes not simply a political concept, but a practical development tool.
The CDP has given this philosophy a concrete institutional structure. Reports on the programme indicate that each ward has a community-level committee drawing representation from different segments of society, including traditional leaders, councillors, women, youths, persons with disabilities, elders and representatives of education and health sectors.
The state also recruited 1,083 grassroots personnel, comprising three officers for each ward, to facilitate community engagement and provide a link between government and citizens.l This architecture is important because meaningful participation requires more than inviting citizens to meetings; it requires mechanisms through which community voices can be systematically captured, analysed, transmitted into government planning and followed through to implementation.
The first phase of the CDP demonstrated the practical dimension of this approach. The administration released ₦3.61 billion in community-managed grants, with each of the 361 wards receiving ₦10 million to identify and implement priority projects.
According to reporting by Channels Television, the programme subsequently facilitated the renovation and rehabilitation of more than 3,900 public facilities across the state. The importance of these figures is not simply the amount of money spent or the number of facilities touched. The deeper significance lies in the fact that communities were given an opportunity to determine what they considered most urgent and to participate in translating those priorities into tangible interventions.
This is where the Katsina CDP becomes particularly relevant to the broader discussion about inclusive governance. Development is often weakened when communities are treated only as beneficiaries rather than as partners. When people participate in identifying a problem, determining a priority and implementing a solution, they are more likely to develop a sense of ownership over the intervention.
Governor Radda himself has emphasised this principle, arguing that development becomes more meaningful and sustainable when communities are involved in identifying their needs and driving solutions. He has also called on CDP structures to operate with fairness, transparency and accountability and to work with traditional rulers, women, youths, persons with disabilities and other stakeholders.
Perhaps the most significant development, however, is the connection between community participation and public budgeting. Katsina has moved beyond asking communities what projects they want and has begun creating a pathway through which community priorities can inform the state’s formal budget process.
In July 2026, the administration conducted statewide ward-level consultations for the preparation of the 2027 budget, with consultations taking place simultaneously across all 361 wards. The state government described the exercise as part of Governor Radda’s commitment to inclusive governance and ensuring that citizens have a direct voice in how public resources are planned and allocated.
This is an important governance innovation because a budget is ultimately a statement of priorities. If citizens can participate in determining those priorities, then budgeting becomes more connected to lived realities. The process can be understood as a development chain in which community needs generate priorities, priorities inform planning, planning influences budgeting, budgeting supports implementation, and implementation is subjected to monitoring and community feedback.
When that chain is functional, citizens are not simply waiting for government to decide what should be done for them; they become participants in determining what government should prioritise.
The experience surrounding the 2026 budget illustrates the potential of this approach. The state government reported that the 2026 budget was preceded by extensive ward-level consultations, with thousands of participants contributing to the process.
Governor Radda described the exercise as an effort to place citizens’ priorities at the foundation of fiscal planning. The consultations were subsequently linked to interventions across areas including infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare, education, water, youth empowerment, social protection, community development and security support.
This approach gives particular value to the concept of people-centred budgeting. It does not mean that every demand made by every community can automatically become a budget line. Government must still consider available resources, technical feasibility, policy priorities, equity and the wider public interest.
But it means that communities have a legitimate channel through which their needs can enter the planning process. That distinction is crucial. Inclusive governance is not government promising everything that citizens request; it is government creating credible mechanisms through which citizens can be heard and their priorities considered transparently.
The model also has implications for accountability. If citizens participate in identifying priorities, they should also be able to follow the progress of those priorities. Communities should know what was approved, what was funded, what was implemented and what remains outstanding.
Civil society organisations should be able to support independent monitoring. The media should be able to investigate implementation and report both progress and shortcomings. Government institutions should provide information that allows citizens to understand how public resources are being used. In this sense, participation and accountability must advance together.
Katsina’s CDP therefore has the potential to become more than a programme for small community projects. Properly strengthened, it can become part of a broader governance system in which community intelligence, citizen priorities and local knowledge inform public policy.
The programme’s deployment of Community Development Officers, Community Line Officers, Community Support Officers and Community-Level Committees creates a grassroots infrastructure through which government can better understand local conditions.
This is particularly valuable in addressing development challenges that cannot be understood entirely through statistics and government reports. A community knows when a health facility is technically open but practically inaccessible. Parents know when a school building exists but lacks teachers or learning materials. Farmers know the obstacles that prevent them from converting production into income. Women understand barriers to accessing economic opportunities and healthcare. Young people know where skills and employment gaps are most acute. Local knowledge does not replace technical planning, but it can make technical planning more relevant.
That is why the CDP should be viewed as part of a broader social contract between government and citizens. Government brings public resources, policy, institutions and technical capacity. Communities contribute knowledge, participation, ownership and social accountability. Civil society contributes evidence, advocacy and independent oversight. Traditional institutions contribute social cohesion and mobilisation.
Development partners contribute technical expertise and resources, while the private sector contributes investment, innovation and employment. When these actors work together, development becomes a collective enterprise.
The approach is also important in the context of security. Katsina cannot fully realise its development potential while communities continue to experience insecurity. Security remains one of the most important priorities requiring sustained attention, particularly because insecurity affects agriculture, education, healthcare, trade, investment and community mobility.
Governor Radda’s administration has adopted both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches and established the Katsina Community Watch Corps as part of its effort to strengthen grassroots security and community participation. The Governor has emphasised that security involves trust, intelligence, community participation and moral responsibility alongside conventional security operations.
The next stage must be to double the state’s efforts on security while deepening the development interventions that make communities more resilient. Security cannot be reduced to weapons, personnel and operations. It also requires functioning institutions, economic opportunity, education, social cohesion, community intelligence and public confidence.
A farmer who cannot safely reach his farm, a child who cannot safely attend school, a health worker who cannot reach a facility and a trader who cannot move goods safely are all experiencing a development problem as well as a security problem. Consequently, security and development must reinforce one another.
This is also an area where the CDP can contribute. Community structures can help identify local vulnerabilities, support social cohesion and provide legitimate channels for communication between citizens and government. They should not replace professional security agencies, but they can complement broader security architecture through responsible community engagement and information sharing. The objective should be to build communities that are not only protected from violence but are also economically, socially and institutionally resilient.
At 39, Katsina also has a strong reason to deepen the role of civil society in its development process. CSOs should not be seen simply as critics of government, nor should they become extensions of government. Their greatest value lies in helping to connect citizens and institutions. They can help communities understand budgets, participate meaningfully in consultations, monitor projects, document outcomes, identify gaps and advocate for evidence-based solutions.
Government and civil society may sometimes disagree, but constructive disagreement can strengthen public policy when it is based on evidence and a shared interest in improving citizens’ welfare.
The media has a similar responsibility. Development journalism must go beyond announcing that a project has been commissioned. The important questions are whether the project was completed, whether it is functioning, who benefits, whether the quality meets the required standard, how much was spent and what difference it has made in people’s lives. In an increasingly participatory governance environment, journalism can help close the information gap between government and citizens by documenting both progress and unresolved challenges.
The broader development agenda of Katsina must also continue to move beyond physical infrastructure. Education, healthcare, agriculture, youth employment, women’s economic empowerment, social protection, climate resilience, digital transformation and private-sector development are all necessary for building a resilient state.
The 2026 budget included major allocations across education, works and housing, agriculture and livestock, health, water resources and environmental interventions, reflecting the administration’s stated focus on human capital and infrastructure.
Agriculture deserves particular attention because of its importance to Katsina’s economy and rural population. The state needs to continue moving beyond input distribution towards stronger agricultural value chains involving irrigation, mechanisation, extension services, storage, processing, finance and access to markets. If properly developed, agriculture can become an engine for rural employment, food security, household income and industrial development.
Community participation can help ensure that agricultural interventions are directed toward genuine local needs and that beneficiaries are identified through reliable community knowledge rather than purely administrative assumptions.
The same principle applies to youth and women. Inclusive governance must mean more than inviting young people and women to meetings. It should mean giving them meaningful opportunities to influence decisions and benefit from economic programmes. Women, youths, persons with disabilities, farmers, traders, artisans and other community groups should be treated as development actors whose experience and knowledge can improve policy design.
The statewide consultations for the 2027 budget explicitly called for participation from these groups, reinforcing the idea that inclusive governance must reach beyond political and administrative structures. (Katsina State)
There is therefore a strong case for viewing Katsina’s CDP not simply as a project-distribution mechanism but as a potential governance innovation. Its long-term value will depend on whether the structures created at community level remain functional, whether citizen participation remains credible, whether resources are managed transparently and whether community priorities continue to influence formal government planning. The programme should evolve with evidence, independent assessment and lessons from implementation.
The release of a further ₦4 billion for the second phase of the CDP, with ₦10 million again allocated to each of the 361 wards, demonstrates the administration’s intention to continue the model. The next phase therefore presents an opportunity to strengthen what has worked while addressing weaknesses that may emerge.
Greater transparency, stronger monitoring, better documentation, digital project tracking, independent evaluation and stronger collaboration with civil society and development partners can help ensure that community-driven development produces durable results.
Ultimately, the most important achievement of inclusive governance is not the number of meetings held or projects announced. It is whether citizens begin to experience government as something closer, more responsive and more accountable to them. When a community sees its priority reflected in a plan, sees resources allocated to it, sees a project implemented and is given a role in protecting and monitoring that intervention, the relationship between citizen and state changes. Governance becomes more tangible.
This is perhaps the most important lesson of Katsina at 39. The state’s development future cannot be secured by government alone. It requires government leadership, but also community ownership; public investment, but also private-sector participation; professional expertise, but also local knowledge; security operations, but also social resilience; and development programmes, but also accountability.
Katsina has the opportunity to make inclusive governance a defining feature of its next development chapter. The CDP provides a platform. Ward-level budgeting consultations provide a mechanism. Civil society provides independent civic engagement.
Traditional institutions provide community legitimacy and social cohesion. Development partners provide technical and financial resources. The private sector provides economic opportunity. Citizens provide the knowledge, participation and ownership that make development sustainable.
As Katsina approaches its 40th year, therefore, the ambition should not simply be to celebrate what has been achieved under Governor Radda’s administration or to catalogue government projects. The deeper ambition should be to strengthen a governance model in which every ward matters, every community has a voice, public resources are connected to clearly identified needs, citizens can participate in monitoring results, and development becomes a shared responsibility.
The journey is not complete. Katsina still faces serious challenges, particularly insecurity, unemployment, poverty, infrastructure deficits, human-capital gaps and the effects of climate and environmental pressures. These challenges require the government and its partners to do more, not less.
Security must remain a priority. Education and healthcare require sustained investment. Agriculture must become more productive. Young people need skills and economic opportunities. Women need greater access to finance and productive assets. Public institutions must continue to strengthen transparency and accountability.
But the most promising part of the journey may be the recognition that these challenges cannot be solved from the top alone. They must be solved with the people.
That is the deeper significance of the Katsina Community Development Programme and the broader inclusive-governance agenda under Governor Dikko Umar Radda. It represents an attempt to move citizens from the margins of development planning toward the centre of the conversation.
At 39, Katsina therefore has a story of history and resilience to celebrate, but also a governance experiment worth strengthening. The real measure of its success will ultimately be whether community voices continue to influence decisions, whether budgets increasingly respond to evidence and local priorities, whether projects translate into measurable improvements in people’s lives, and whether the state can combine development with peace, security and social cohesion.
The question for Katsina’s 40th year should consequently be bigger than “What has government done?” It should be “What have government and the people built together, what has changed in the lives of citizens, and how can we make those changes sustainable?”
That is the conversation that can transform an anniversary from a celebration of history into a platform for the next generation of development.
Katsina at 39 is not only a story of where the state has come from. It is a story of how government, communities and society can work together to determine where Katsina goes next.
Dr. Musa Abdullahi Sufi
is a Development Journalist and the CEO, SIDES Media.He can be reached via Email: musaabdullahisufi@gmail.com.
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