Defining Moment For Nigeria: Why Staying The Course Matters, By Mohammed Idris
As we enter a new year, 2026, the questions that fill our markets, our homes, and our places of work are clear and urgent. They are questions about the price of food, about security in our communities, and about the direction in which our country is headed. It is the duty of this office, the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, to speak to these questions directly, clearly, and with respect for every Nigerian bearing the weight of this moment.
The last thirty-one months have been a period of foundational, often difficult, transformation. Our bold reforms, beginning with the necessary but painful decisions on subsidies and exchange rates, were engineered to break a cycle of economic stagnation and secure a future of sustainable prosperity. This path was never promised to be easy, but it was promised to be honest and purposeful.
Today, the first green shoots of that promised stability are visible. December 2025 marked the thirteenth consecutive month of expansion in business activity. Multinational firms are re-evaluating Nigeria with serious intent. Our GDP is growing, inflation is declining, and our external reserves are strengthening. These are not mere statistics for reports; they are the essential groundwork upon which lasting improvement in everyday life is built.
However, a nation is not governed by indices alone. A nation is governed through trust, forged in the clear communication of both struggle and progress. My role is to be a steady voice for this administration, to explain our ambitions and our actions.
Upon this emerging macroeconomic stability, we have prioritised layering direct interventions that touch lives. The student loan programme (NELFUND) is opening doors. The Presidential CNG initiative is aimed at reducing transport costs. Programmes like LEEP, the Jubilee Fellows, and the 3MTT are designed to put skills and opportunity directly into the hands of our youth. In agriculture, a historic recapitalisation of the Bank of Agriculture and new mechanisation programs are deployed to combat food insecurity at its root.
We are also pushing ambitious infrastructure. The Coastal Highway, the Sokoto-Badagry Expressway, the AKK Gas Pipeline, and new rail lines, to unite our economy and reduce the costs embedded in our geography.
In security, a new architecture is being rolled out. We are investing heavily in recruitment, equipment, and international cooperation to finally turn the tide against terrorism and banditry. The recent rescue of our abducted students in Kebbi and Niger states, respectively, is a testament to this relentless focus, and we remain steadfast until every Nigerian feels safe.
I acknowledge the fatigue that comes with endurance. The anxiety over prices, the worry for loved ones, and the desire for quicker results are all valid feelings; they are the human context of governance. This administration hears you. Our resolve is to accelerate the pace at which these reforms translate into tangible, widespread relief.
This is why in 2026, our “Budget of Consolidation, Renewed Resilience and Shared Prosperity” is critical. It is a commitment to double down on what is working, to solidify gains, and to ensure that the shared prosperity we speak of becomes a lived reality for more Nigerians, faster.
But nation-building is a covenant. We, in government, commit to lead with clarity, to deploy resources with integrity, and to communicate with constancy. We commit to face the people, to account for our stewardship, and to explain our path. In return, the civic strength of our nation, our collective will to pay taxes, to protect public goods, to engage constructively, and to reject the divisive pull of mischaracterisation and disinformation is what will ultimately secure our shared future.
This office, under my watch, shall be accountable and purposeful. It will remain a responsible, accessible, and truthful channel between the government and you, the people. We will explain, we will defend, we will listen, and we will report. You will continually and sustainably see and hear from this ministry, a clear voice of accountability for the government’s whole agenda.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, has never been one to be fazed by problems or challenges. His approach has consistently been calm and decisive—turning difficulties into opportunities to do things better and more efficiently. Our recent engagements as a government with the United States bear witness to this approach. Under the President’s leadership, we turned a tense period into an opportunity to deepen bilateral relations with the US and to ramp up our anti-insurgency efforts.
But even as we acknowledge the gains we have made, we do not seek to live in the past. Our eyes are firmly focused on what lies ahead and on how tomorrow must improve on today. For us, every moment in the present is an opportunity to double down on what is working, so that we can reap the full benefits of reform.
The journey ahead demands our collective patience and our shared resolve. The easy politics of division and noise will persist, but the hard work of building a Nigeria that works for all must prevail. We have laid a new foundation. Now, we must build the house together.
I wish every Nigerian a peaceful and productive year ahead.
Mohammed Idris, fnipr, Minister of Information and National Orientation wrote in from Abuja.
… Murtala Adewale presents the award to Yusuf Ozi-Usman
Another Peace-Making Job For Gov Buni, A Man Who Doesn’t Abuse People, By Hassan Gimba
A couple of weeks after the first edition of my write-up on the good work Governor Mai Mala Buni has been doing in Yobe State in the last six plus years, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed him, while still battling the governance of Yobe State, as chairman of a Committee on Strategy, Conflict Resolution and Mobilisation to resolve conflicts within the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The President tasked the committee with strengthening party cohesion, resolving lingering disputes and crafting a unified mobilisation strategy to sustain APC’s dominance at the polls.
It is on record that Governor Mai Mala Buni had similarly held many political party positions in the past: he was first elected national secretary of the APC and served for five years. He left to become the Governor of Yobe State. And while serving as Governor, he was made the Caretaker APC National Chairman and the chairman of its Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee between 2020 and 2022. It was during his tenure that he “broke” the People’s Democratic Party’s “dam” where he “poached” and “harvested” its governors, National Assembly members.
What many people may also want to know is the innate desire of Mai Mala Buni for peaceful coexistence and how that had helped him to bring peace and trust to Yobe politics. Indeed, his characteristic is his ability to build bridges and maintain them.
He is a man who, by all means, avoids friction and rancour. No two contending parties would sit with him, and one of them would come out grumbling, because he so much believes in fairness and that justice cannot be for one side alone.
Those who know him well say he is cultured. You will never hear him abuse (even in private) or fight any person in the opposition, within his party, or non-aligned, even if that person insults him. And when any good that is meant for the one who fights him is about to escape from his grasp, Buni would be the first person to force it back to him. That is the extent of his fairness. He is a thoroughbred and refined politician; broad-minded and cosmopolitan, at ease with the locals and their settings, humble and knowledgeable.
No doubt these are qualities President Tinubu and influential party stakeholders know that informed the decision to give him the enormous responsibility of strengthening party cohesion, resolving lingering disputes and crafting a unified mobilisation strategy. With the avalanche of defectors to the APC, including governors and National Assembly members, a level-headed, just and fair personality like Buni is needed to unite, consolidate, and stabilise the party.
And no doubt, it is these qualities, coupled with his respect for human dignity and belief that every individual should have the opportunity to excel, that led him to declare a state of emergency in education, which has seen out-of-school kids mopped off the streets, and secondary school students winning accolades around the globe.
His administration has established six Model Schools, seven Mega Schools, nine Government Girls’ Day Senior Secondary Schools, eight co-educational Government Day Senior Secondary Schools, one additional boys’ school, and an IDP School in Buni-Yadi. Scholarships have also been awarded to nearly 1,000 high-achieving students of both sexes to pursue various fields, including Petroleum Engineering, Medicine, Anaesthesia, Piloting, Aeronautical Engineering, and Pharmacy, both locally and internationally.
In his bid to make the state the nation’s breadbasket, Governor Buni implemented a “Mega Agricultural Empowerment Programme” to transition the state from subsistence farming to mechanised, commercial agriculture. He aims to ensure food security and economic resilience through agribusiness.
In 2024, Vice President Kashim Shettima was in Damaturu, the state capital, to launch the first phase, which targeted over 80,000 farmers and provided 100 tractors, 5,349 small ruminants for women, and over 6,000 other pieces of farm machinery.
And in July last year, the president launched the second phase, during which dozens of tractors, 1,349 hand planters, 8,000 harvesters, 4,000 solar-powered water pumps, and 20,000 bags of subsidised fertiliser were distributed.
Massey Ferguson tractors, power tillers, hand-push planters, multi-purpose threshers, and crop residue crushers were also allocated to various local government areas for distribution to deserving farmers.
In August last year, the governor once again donated feed and inputs to 2,700 pastoralists, providing fodder crushers and motorcycles to boost livestock productivity and reduce herder–farmer conflicts.
His agricultural empowerment policy has encouraged youth to view agriculture as a profitable business, and providing women with goats and feed has empowered many households to boost their incomes.
This has led to lower prices for staple foods through increased farm output, thereby enhancing food security and improving living conditions in the state.
This was reflected in the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics’ July 2025 report, which found that Yobe State is the most affordable place to live in Nigeria.
It said: “Yobe State is Nigeria’s most affordable state to live in, with low costs driven by falling inflation and successful agricultural programmes boosting food security and local markets, making it relatively cheaper for housing and daily living compared to other states, especially around cities like Damaturu and Potiskum, where business thrives, though security improvements are key to sustained affordability.”
But what inspired this piece was Yobe State’s pacesetting achievements in healthcare delivery, which made it emerge as Nigeria’s leading state in Primary Health Care (PHC) and win awards at the 2025 PHC Leadership Challenge Awards held in Abuja late last year.
Primary health care focuses on grassroots healthcare. It clinched the award of Best Performing State in the North-East for the second consecutive year, winning the title in 2024 and 2025, with each award attracting a $500,000 prize, and also emerging as the Overall Best Performing State in Nigeria, securing an additional $700,000, bringing the total prize money earned to $1.2 million. They are a clear indication of Governor Buni’s administration’s sustained investment and reforms in the health sector.
To begin with, Governor Buni has ensured that each of the state’s wards has a functional primary health care outlet maintained round the clock. There was an issue with a primary health care office destroyed by a thunderstorm, and a resident of the area, whom I do not personally know, informed me via WhatsApp, sending me photos. I forwarded them to the governor, and the first thing he asked me, which gave a window into his thinking, was…
Dr. Hassan Gimba, Publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime wrote in from Abuja.