Hope is renewed in Kaduna state – Maiyaki

Ahmad Maiyaki is the Commissioner for Information and Culture in Kaduna State. In this interview with Blueprint.ng correspondent, he talks about a new Kaduna under Governor Sani Uba.

Please list the achievements of the Kaduna State Government in the agricultural sector, previously affected by insecurity.

So far, under the leadership of His Excellency the Kaduna State Governor Sen Uba Sani, the Kaduna State Government through its non-kinetic Kaduna Peace Model strategy, has been able to recover over 500,000 hectares of agricultural land previously held by bandits and criminals which has prevented many farmers from abandoning their farms and has led to the closure of schools and even health centres. Today, with this huge success, we have managed to bring our farmers back to the farms. We have also reopened schools and hospitals, which has impacted our food security drive.

How can you describe this impact on the state’s food security drive?

You will recall that in the gross domestic product, GDP of Kaduna state, agriculture contributes about 42% and about 60% of our farmers are now engaged in agricultural activities, and of course you know that it is one of the major agrarian states. Insecurity poses a major threat to that particular sector of our economy. So with these successes, our farmers have returned to the farm and our yields have more than tripled. The agricultural activities carried out in the last two years have never been carried out in the last 9-10 years because most of the farmers have abandoned their farms due to the criminal activities of the bandits. So for us it is a success story. If you look at the communities of Giwa, Burnin Gwari, Chukun, Kajuru and Kachia, farmers have now returned to their farms.

Can you give us a statistical overview of what has been achieved so far in the sector?

You will recall that when we arrived in 2023, we achieved a budgetary allocation of 1.48 billion naira for the entire agricultural sector. Governor Uba Sani believes this is not acceptable. This was why in 2024, the first budget initiated and approved by the administration grew from 1.48 billion naira to about 22 billion naira and in 2025 it grew from 22 billion naira to 74 billion naira. Finally in 2026, the current year, we have over $100 billion allocated for the agricultural sector and this has enabled the state government to provide a lot of interventions in the sector. These include free distribution of 400 trucks of NPT fertilizers and urea to small farmers. In 2025, with this support, we went from 400 trucks to 500 trucks destined for our small farmers. This year too, the administration distributed around 500 trucks to 150,000 small farmers. The idea is to see how we support our farmers. My simple reference is that if you grow one hectare of land without fertilizers, you will get a production of 2-3 bags with that space of land. But with the two bags that we gave you, at no cost, you will be able to grow around 20-22 bags of corn. This is just one example to show you the impact this intervention has had in supporting our farmers to grow on their farms. Not just the small farmers, this administration has decided to support the big, bigger farmers by distributing a minimum of 10 bags with a 50% loss, which has also given a boost to the agricultural sector. There is no greater threat to peace and security than food insecurity. When people are hungry, you are bound to face challenges related to insecurity. That’s why this administrator focused on this.

Furthermore, the focus is not just on one agricultural season: the state government has stepped in by distributing irrigation pumps, solar-powered irrigation pumps and tractors. Kaduna today is the second leading country in mechanized agriculture after Kano State. This is to ensure that the agricultural season is available all year round. The State Government has continued to invest to ensure that the threat to agriculture, which typically drove our farmers away from their farms, is addressed.

Can we then say that you declare victory over insecurity?

While we have not declared victory over insecurity, I want to assure you that we have secured our communities. Since we achieved tremendous success in 2023, 90% of our farmers and communities today are safe and back on their farms and we have maintained our position as the top producer of maize in Nigeria, the top producer of tomatoes in Nigeria, the top producer of soybeans in Nigeria, the top producer of ginger with the best form of ginger in Africa in recent years. We are very pleased to announce that this recovery of more than 500,000 hectares of agricultural land has contributed to our goal of revitalizing the agricultural sector and ensuring the safety of our people.

How has this affected the level of poverty among communities?

Yes, there is poverty among our people, but what we are used to measuring is economic poverty, but when you are threatened by food insecurity, you are threatened by school closures, hospital closures, then you have multidimensional poverty. Most of our challenges arise from the fact that more than 80% of our rural inhabitants are multidimensional poor. So this is a deliberate strategy to ensure the safety of our people, especially people living in agriculture in rural areas

When we arrived, we identified 12 local government areas that had not seen half a kilometer of road in the last fifteen years. For this reason, we focused and ensured that each of the 23 local government areas were targeted by undertaking a road project that has 150 roads and spans approximately 1400 kilometers and most of these projects are implemented in their communities. One of the projects is the 35 kilometer road connecting Gadan Gayan in Igabi Local Government Area to Gwaraji in Kajuru Local Government Area and Kujama in Chukun Local Government Area. By carrying out this project, you will not only provide road access, but also improve security forces. When a distress call comes, they find it difficult to respond to such emergencies as there are no access roads. So this road project also provides access to improve safety in our communities. It is connecting our farmers to the market. Even when they grow, they then have to take these products to market, and when there is no road access it becomes a challenge. So this road access that connects these communities is also helping our farmers connect to markets. It is also connecting our children to school because lack of access is also a major challenge for children going to school.

It also strengthens healthcare by improving maternal health. The main challenge is maternal health which leads to deaths of women during pregnancy and is largely due to significant delays. The first delay is the ability to decide to use health services, opting for the antinatal one. Secondly there is access because when a woman is pregnant she is in an emergency and needs healthcare. So these road projects also connect our people to hospitals to seek better healthcare and ensure safe delivery during pregnancy.

Today in Kaduna, over the last three years with these interventions we have reduced maternal deaths by 19.5%, which is a great success for the state.

Please talk about the Kaduna peace model.

The Kaduna Peace Model is a non-kinetic approach that involves community members. First, traditional institutions, religious leaders, youth groups and other key non-state actors involved in community policing. That’s why, if you remember, Kaduna just recruited and trained about 1000 forest rangers. They live in those communities. Security is not provided by government officials sitting in government offices in state capitals and issuing directives. It involves people in the community, it is a participatory process in which community members are involved, where, with our warning signs and first signals, we identify a threat, we respond to the threat, even before any form of insecurity. So, we are doing this with community members ensuring that these communities are safer. We have the Ministry of Agriculture working in liaison with farmers; we have details on how these farmers engage in communities. Let me give you an example: In Birnin Gwari local government, the market is held every Thursday of the week and this has really helped. Today if you go to Birnin Gwari, about 50 truckloads of cows are transported to Lagos and other parts of southern Nigeria because security has returned. But before now that market had been closed for more than a decade. Since the market reopened, every day you go to Birnin Gwari on Thursday, there is the cattle market which runs a weekly business and there are people from different parts of the world, from Togo, Niger, Cameroon, Chad and some parts of the south-west and south-south who go to Birnin Gwari every day because the roads are safe. Before now it was difficult to go to Birnin Gwari from Kaduna. You have to cross the Niger and Kontagora to go to Birnin Gwari, it takes about nine hours, but today we can make our farmers travel to Birnin Gwari at any time of the day.

At one point it was very difficult to go to Abuja from Kaduna because the roads were torn down due to insecurity, but today you can go to Abuja at any time of the day without any fear. You can go to Giwa, Kajuru and southern parts of Kaduna without fear of insecurity.

Are there any details on the bumper harvest after the recovery of the 500,000 hectares of agricultural land?

We had a bumper harvest last year too. That’s why you’ll notice that the price of food has dropped dramatically. You remember that at one point the cost of a bag of maize was around 100,000 naira. Today, in our markets in Giwa, Saminaka and others, the cost of a large bag of maize ranges from N28,000 to N29,000, and this is due to the bumper crop. The cost of food has decreased. In some places, the cost of rice was so high that buying 50kg of rice cost more than 100,000 naira. Today, going to the markets only costs about 50,000 naira because our farmers have returned to the farms. The main rice process may not even require purchasing foreign rice. Our local rice today is one of the best nutritious rices produced locally. Let’s go to soybeans, the cost of soybeans has also gone down because our farmers have gone back to the farms. The cost of yam has also reduced, at one point it was so exorbitant that a yam tuber cost around N5000, but today with N5000 you can buy a good number of yam tubers in this country.

In our 2026 Hajj operations, the largest number of Kaduna pilgrims were farmers because they had more money to save and could travel to perform the Hajj pilgrimage, which is a mandatory spiritual right for Muslims. These are indicators that show that we have achieved a bumper harvest from our farmers.