It is one year into the administration of Dr. Dikko Radda, and this has left no one in doubt, that having Governor Dikko Radda at the helm of governance in Katsina State, was the best decision ‘Katsinawa’ took in the 2023 elections, from the array of candidates it had been presented with. Katsina is now the better for it from so many facets of governance, as Dr. Radda is taking the challenges head on, leaving no sector behind, despite the elephant in the room, being insecurity.
Katsina needed a technocrat, a politician, a seasoned administrator, a philanthropist and a son of the soil who understood the challenges of Katsina, and what needed to be done to surmount them. Today, atleast 70% of farmlands in Katsina State are a lush green savannah of farming activities as locals have been returning to their farmlands to continue with their age old traditions.
The Katsina Community Security Watch Corps, boasting of over 1500 personnel from each of the wards of every local government, have been serving as a veritable and efficient tool in fighting insecurity in the State, in collaboration with the regular security agencies in the State. The Community Watch Corp has been armed with 12 Armored Personnel Carriers, 65 Hilux vans, and hundreds of motorcycles for the effective execution of their war against banditry.
The security agencies including the police and the army have at several times commended the gallantry and intelligence gathering capabilities of the Corps, which has helped them in annihilating so many terrorist hideouts and strongholds in the State. The road to freedom is a long walk in terms of insecurity but that journey has been covered by more than half the distance.
Aside insecurity, the health sector in Katsina is also recording remarkable achievements under the Dikko Radda administration. Almost 50 students have been sponsored to study Medicine abroad, while the school bills of those studying here in Nigeria are being footed by the Katsina State Government. Several Primary Healthcare Centres are being built across the various local governments in Katsina State. Charanchi Primary Healthcare Centre is being built into a general hospital. Faskari Healthcare Centre is also being upgraded into a general hospital. A world class kidney centre has also been built by the Dikko Radda administration providing dialysis for patients with renal diseases in the State. More than one hundred health personnel have been recruited by the State: these include doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and medical laboratory scientists. More than 2 million children have been vaccinated in the State, with the State Government engaging World Medical Relief in the US, and securing donations of equipments and medical supplies worth 10 billion naira.
Dr. Dikko Radda having been a teacher himself, knows where it bites the most in terms of the inadequacies in the education sector, and one can say that he is leaving no stone unturned to revamp this sector, and reclaim Katsina’s status as one of the most educated States in the North. 75 new secondary schools are being built in Katsina State, with 15 of them designated Mega Secondary Schools with special funding. 100 secondary schools across the State are also being rebuilt or renovated.
Under the Better Education Service Delivery for all, BESDA, equipments to the tune of 1.8 billion naira for primary schools have been procured. Another 2.2 billion has been expended in the rehabilitation, construction and supply of furniture to some primary schools under the UBEC program. Fees for WAEC, NECO, NBAIS, and NABTEB for all Katsina State Students, to the tune of 1.39 billion have all been cleared. CBT centres at Dutsinma, Daura and Malumfashi for these exams have also been hugely upgraded and equipped. Funds have also been released for the payment of 1st and 2nd COHORTS of 54,741 CCT beneficiaries in the State, as well as the 3rd COHORTS of girls scholarship to 49,370 mothers and caregivers in the State.
Other infrastructural projects in the State include the completion of the 30km Road from Kafur to Mahuta. There’s also the dualisation of the Kofar Soro to the Kofar Guga Road in the metropolis. The Katsina State Government is embarking on the construction of 129kms of roads and 201 linear meter drainages in rural communities across the State. 140 housing units for internally displaced persons is also being built in Jibia Local government area of the State. All existing road projects inherited from the previous administration are being completed by the Dikko Radda administration.
This is important for continuity in order not to leave a litter of uncompleted projects across the State, amounting to a waste of humongous resources, which is the practice of most State governments across the country. Within 60 days, the popular Maryam Park in Katsina was upgraded and renovated, and schoolchildren have been ecstatic and are already trooping in to visit the long abandoned edifice. Just recently, the State government procured and distributed 722 motorcycles on a loan basis to the co-opted local government agric staff who were recently trained for the State’s Agricultural Extension Services. Tractors, combined harvesters and other agric implements are well on their way to the State, which would be utilised by farmers’ cooperatives in the State, for massive farming activities of small holder farmers.
Dr. Dikko Radda is fast changing the tide of insecurity that has bedeviled Katsina State, dotting the length and breadth of the State with massive infrastructural and human development projects and schemes. Dr. Dikko Radda was awarded Governor of the year 2023 at the Leadership Conference and Awards. He has just recently been bestowed with the National Honor of CON, by Mr. President.
This is no doubt, in recognition of the sterling efforts of Dr. Dikko Radda, standing out amongst his equals. It is just a year so far and Katsina is witnessing so much development, as if it were a first term score card. It is going to be difficult to find another Governor especially in the North, doing more than what Dr. Radda is doing in Katsina. Katsinawa got this one squarely right.
