Muhammed Ali Ahmed
For Kaduna, peace carries a meaning deeper than the absence of confrontation. It is the reassurance that a citizen’s faith will neither diminish belonging nor determine access to public opportunity. It is the freedom to cultivate land, educate children, practise religion and pursue a livelihood without the apprehension that difference may become a sentence. At a Special Interfaith Dialogue in Kaduna on October 5, 2026, religious leaders offered compelling testimony that Governor Uba Sani’s administration is steadily restoring these assurances to a state long troubled by communal distrust.
Held at the newly-inaugurated Abba Kyari Banquet Hall, Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna, the gathering examined three years of peaceful coexistence and inclusivity. Organised by the Kaduna State Bureau of Interfaith, it brought Muslim and Christian leaders into a common conversation about governance, reconciliation and development. Their commendations, including calls for Uba Sani’s re-election, drew strength from specific experiences. Roads requested had been delivered, religious communities felt recognised, and former sceptics acknowledged that performance had altered their judgement. The endorsement was therefore grounded in the relationship between government decisions and everyday life.
Governor Uba Sani distilled his approach with unusual clarity: “Our model is very simple. It does not need any study. It is about justice. It is about bringing everyone to the table.” Behind that formulation lies a consequential understanding of leadership. In a divided society, fairness must become visible in appointments, investments, access and language. Citizens must encounter a government whose conduct reassures them that their identities are respected and their needs count. The governor’s achievement has been to make that reassurance central to his administration’s public purpose.
Recalling the atmosphere he inherited, Sani said: “When we came into office, we inherited a state that was highly toxic and divided.” He described situations in which people declined to develop allocated land because they feared living among communities of another faith. “For me, it is unacceptable and we should not allow it to continue in Kaduna State,” he declared.
His determination to confront such estrangement recognises that communal division impoverishes everyone, narrowing residential choices, weakening commerce and teaching children to inherit suspicions they did not create.
His formal address supplied the governing principle: “No citizen should feel compelled to diminish an identity to enjoy belonging.” Equally, he insisted, “no identity should confer superior entitlement to public protection, opportunity or justice.” These are substantial commitments in Kaduna, where religion and ethnicity have too often been recruited into political competition. Sani recalled that his oath on May 29, 2023, bound him to fairness irrespective of affiliation. The dialogue demonstrated how seriously religious leaders now regard his efforts to honour that obligation.
The Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Kaduna State, Reverend Caleb Ma’aji, offered a particularly concrete assessment. At the Christmas Carol of December 22, 2024, he had requested three roads: Nasarawa–UNTL–First Bank, PAN Drive–Television Garage–Sabon Tasha and Romi–Karatudu. Two, he told the gathering, had been completed; the third was nearing completion. Such testimony matters because public confidence grows when requests become projects and projects become usable infrastructure. For communities accustomed to questioning whether government would hear them, delivery provides an answer more persuasive than ceremonial assurances.
Ma’aji also welcomed the restoration of Christian pilgrimage sponsorship. “His Excellency sponsored 50 Christians to Jordan and Jerusalem,” he said, expressing hope for an increased number. He further praised the reported choice of Jerry Adams, a Christian from southern Kaduna, as Sani’s running mate for the coming election, describing it as “a departure from the culture of old.” His remarks placed recognition, representation and responsiveness within the same argument: inclusion becomes credible when communities can identify decisions that acknowledge their place in the state.
From the Muslim leadership, Professor Khalid Aliyu, Secretary-General of Jama’atu Nasril Islam, described Sani as a peacemaker. Sheikh Haliru Maraya linked that assessment to education and security, commending reduced tuition fees in state-owned tertiary institutions and the reopening of schools previously affected by insecurity. He cited 4,876 deaths, 7,694 kidnappings and 1,660 security incidents under the preceding administration. These grave figures underscored his account of the circumstances against which he judged current progress, although his reported remarks did not specify their reporting period.
Maraya’s strongest educational testimony was direct: “Before the coming of this administration, there were 534 schools that were closed due to insecurity.” He continued: “As at today, there is not a single school in Kaduna State that is not open.” The significance of his assessment extends beyond institutional reopening. Every recovered classroom restores a child’s relationship with possibility and relieves families of another burden imposed by violence. His acknowledgement of farmers returning to their land similarly located the peace dividend within the recovery of productive life.
Perhaps the most revealing endorsement came from Bishop David Bakare, National Secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. “I didn’t believe in anything that you were going to do. I didn’t know you,” he admitted, explaining why he had not supported Sani in 2023. Then came his reassessment: “It is after you began your work in Kaduna State, that I asked myself why I didn’t vote for you.” His candour gave the gathering a persuasive dimension: an initial opponent publicly explaining how governance had earned his confidence.
Yet Sani’s address resisted complacency. “I recognise that wounds from past violence do not disappear because public life becomes calmer,” he said. Bereavement, displacement and broken trust demand more than declarations of harmony. “Dialogue must never imply indifference to wrongdoing,” he added, placing reconciliation alongside accountability and the rule of law. This insistence gives his peacebuilding approach moral seriousness. Victims must retain their right to justice while communities acquire the support required to recover relationships, rebuild homes and restore confidence in public protection.
The Kaduna Peace Model, as outlined by the Governor, combines security, sustained engagement, local peace structures, early warning, reconciliation, rehabilitation and reintegration. Religious leaders, traditional institutions, security agencies and peacebuilding organisations have distinct responsibilities within it. Sani acknowledged the quiet interventions that often avert catastrophe: “a rumour checked, a grievance heard, a threatened confrontation defused, a neighbour protected.” His tribute recognised that durable peace depends on institutions and ordinary courage, with government supporting the conditions in which citizens can choose cooperation over confrontation.
Development gives this framework practical substance. At the event, Governor Uba Sani reported about 160 road projects covering approximately 1,335 kilometres across the 23 local government areas, most completed. He also recalled that 12 local government areas had previously gone 12 years without a completed kilometre of road. The broader point is equitable access. Roads bring farmers closer to markets and families closer to schools and hospitals. Their distribution can strengthen trust by demonstrating that geography and communal identity do not place citizens beyond government’s attention.
Healthcare investment reinforces that message. The Governor listed 255 Primary Healthcare Centres upgraded to Level Two facilities, improvements to 15 General Hospitals and the commissioned 300-bed Bola Ahmed Tinubu Specialist Hospital. A further programme covers 82 Primary Healthcare Centres, alongside water, sanitation, selected Centres of Excellence and emergency referrals. His free CNG bus programme likewise reduces the pressure of daily travel, while classrooms, teachers and vocational training widen access to learning and livelihoods. Together, these interventions connect public provision with the household conditions that make stability sustainable.
Agriculture supplies another essential connection. Budgetary provision for agriculture and food security, Gov. Sani stated, increased from about ₦1.48 billion in 2023 to more than ₦100 billion in 2026. He reported the recovery of over 500,000 hectares of previously inaccessible farmland, resettlement support for thousands and targeted assistance reaching more than 117,000 internally displaced persons. Crucially, he attached obligations to these figures: “Returning to a farm must mean a sustainable livelihood; returning home must mean safety and access to essential services.” Project 255 extends the commitment to development interventions in every ward.
Federal support adds scale to Kaduna’s ambitions. Sani credited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with approving the light rail initiative and interpreted Kaduna’s selection alongside Lagos and Kano as recognition of its peace and inclusive governance. The proposed 50-kilometre network comprises a 30-kilometre Rigachikun–Sabon Tasha corridor and a 20-kilometre Millennium City–Rigasa line. The accompanying statement places its value at approximately ₦1 trillion, alongside ₦178 billion for reconstructing the 122-kilometre Mando–Kaduna–Birnin Gwari road. These investments promise stronger mobility, agricultural access and economic integration.
The governor’s appeal to religious leaders also preserved their independence. Their responsibility to speak truth, protect vulnerable people and hold officials accountable, he stressed, remains essential. Women must help shape prevention and reconciliation, while young people must retain the right to question leaders, organise peacefully and vote according to conscience. “A responsible government acknowledges these realities, listens without defensiveness and corrects its shortcomings,” he said, recognising continuing insecurity, hardship, unemployment and educational exclusion. Such acknowledgement strengthens the tribute his administration has earned by defining progress honestly.
The participation of traditional and security leadership broadened the significance of the occasion. The Emir of Zazzau, Ambassador Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli, and Defence Minister, General Christopher Musa (rtd), were among the figures identified in the accounts of the gathering. Their presence placed community reconciliation within a wider institutional conversation about protection and public trust. Kaduna’s experience requires these responsibilities to reinforce one another: security creates room for recovery, while fair governance and trusted local relationships help prevent renewed hostility.
There is also an important lesson for political leadership beyond Kaduna. Inclusion requires patience with criticism, attention to neglected places and consistency between public language and administrative decisions. Governor Sani’s approach deserves commendation because it treats diversity as a responsibility of government. The resulting confidence can support investment, strengthen citizenship and allow communities to imagine a future together without surrendering the identities that make them distinctive.
As elections approach, this distinction becomes especially important. “Political preference must never become a test of religious loyalty or a reason to endanger a neighbour,” Governor Sani warned. Endorsement must coexist with freedom of choice, and political competition must preserve the relationships communities will need after voting ends. The dialogue’s lasting importance therefore exceeds its electoral implications. It revealed growing confidence in a governor who has made fairness a governing discipline and development an instrument of reconciliation. Kaduna’s religious leaders have recognised that achievement; sustaining it is the responsibility their endorsement now renews.
Dr. Ahmed, a scholar, wrote from Samaru, Zaria