Gov Radda’s digital revolution in Katsina, by Ikechukwu Amaechi

When I told a couple of friends on Saturday that I was going to Katsina State, they asked the same question: Must you go? My affirmative answer elicited a familiar, albeit cryptic admonition: I hope you made adequate security arrangements. That is how scared most people, particularly in the South, are right now about Katsina, a state that has been in the news for too long for the wrong reason – insecurity. And no one can blame them, particularly after the controversial community-driven peace deals with bandits which started mid-2025 failed.

But it is not only national psyche that has been badly scarred. The locals are equally inflicted with lasting emotional and psychological damage as a result of their severe traumatic experiences in the hands of terrorists resulting in profound losses. To be sure, there is still insecurity in Katsina. Terrorists are still kidnapping people for ransom and for many, it is sorrow, tears and blood, to borrow a phrase from the landmark 1977 song by Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. But the Katsina insecurity paradox is a single story, which, while not necessarily untrue, nevertheless, as the novelist Chimamanda Adichie noted in her 2009 TED Talk helps in reducing the State to one narrative, thereby creating a harmful stereotype. The point being that to view Katsina State only from the prism of insecurity is tantamount to making one story become the only story. The other side of the Katsina story is that in less than three years, Governor Dikko Umaru Radda has engineered a digital revolution particularly in education by building smart schools that most states in the South can only dream of.

On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, one of them, Radda Special Model Secondary school in Radda town, Charanchi Local Government, was commissioned by Kwara State Governor and chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazak. The project is a spectacle. Smart in every sense, the school has state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities to foster 21st century digital literacy. No expense was spared. Yet, it is not just one project but three – one in each of the three senatorial zones. The other two located in Jikamshi and Dumurkul towns are at different stages of completion, to be commissioned before the end of the year. The school principal, Dr Lawal Shehu, explained that the idea is to leverage on the power of technology to give the students an education experience comparable to anywhere in the world. In security scarred Katsina, digital education assets have been deployed in every classroom of the Radda Special Model School for flexible teaching and high quality learning.

For starters, the school admitted about 900 students into the junior classes. There are presently 42 classes with a maximum 40 students in each. Each of the classes has smart teaching boards with installed learning management systems and open ecosystem algorithms. There is also a 500-capacity examination hall with digital examination boards and cutting edge science laboratories. With power from solar, national electricity grid and generators, the school has a 24-hour electricity supply and internet services. To forestall incidents of security breach, the entire school environment features state-of-the-art security systems – very modern and sophisticated.

All the students live in the boarding house and the teachers also live in well-furnished staff quarters. And not only are the students on full scholarships, they are paid a termly stipend of N15,000 as pocket money.

But as awe-inspiring as the school project is, it only feeds into the broader and layered Katsina Directorate of Information and Communication Technology project ably superintended by Engr. Naufal Ahmed, which has effectively positioned the state in the global digital ecosystem. Typically, a school of this quality will be the exclusive preserve of the children of the rich. But not under Governor Radda’s watch. All the pioneer students went through a transparent and rigorous admission process that involved competitive entrance examination. The idea was to find, identify and give special attention to exceptional and gifted students. The consequence was that most of the students are actually from very poor families, many of who had never left their villages before. The teachers also went through the same recruitment process. The jobs were publicly advertised and applications were submitted through an online application portal. Those pre-selected undertook Computer-Based Tests (CBT), and physical interviews.

The fact that all the students were drawn from public primary schools across all the 360 political wards of the state, reflecting the inclusive and equitable nature of the admission process, aligns with Governor Radda’s unwavering commitment to fairness and equal educational opportunities for children, irrespective of their geographical or socio-economic background just as the establishment of the model schools is a clear demonstration of his vision for special schools tailored to meet the diverse learning needs of children. But, make no mistake: While the Radda Model Secondary School is the crown of the governor’s giant strides in education, it only stands on a foundation of hundreds of investments made quietly, across every local government, for every child in the state. Speaking at the commissioning of the Radda Special Model Secondary School on Tuesday, a visibly elated Governor Radda reiterated the commitment of his administration to improving the quality of education through the provision of innovative digital facilities to aid teaching and learning activities.

He said the students will not only “study in modern, fully-equipped classrooms,” they will also “conduct experiments in state-of-the-art science laboratories… read in a library stocked with the knowledge of the world… compete on sports fields that will develop their bodies and their discipline.” Reiterating that the Radda Model Secondary School was built in promise, dedicated in purpose, and offered with love to the children of Katsina and to the future they will build, he said the idea was a school for the brightest irrespective of the financial standing of their families. Giving further insight, Governor Radda, who was once a teacher said: “When I asked the people of Katsina State for the honour of leading them, I did not come with empty words. I came with a blueprint — a clear, deliberate vision for what this state could become. And at the very heart of that blueprint was a conviction I have carried for many years: that the greatest investment any government can make is not in roads or buildings, but in the minds of its children. Radda Model Secondary School is that conviction made concrete. Made real. Made permanent.”

For him, the project is not just a school. “It is a statement of intent,” which “says to every child in Katsina State — wherever you come from, whichever local government, however humble your home — that your government sees you, believes in you, and is prepared to invest in your future. It says to the daughter of a subsistence farmer in Batsari, to the son of a widow in Jibia, to the bright young girl in Dutsin-Ma who has no one to pay her fees — we built this for you.”

In his column this week titled, “Katsina and the prospect of sub-national renewal,” Dr Dakuku Peterside wrote: “Governor Radda’s governing philosophy is anchored in the Building Your Future agenda, a strategic framework that links today’s emergencies with tomorrow’s possibilities. Its importance does not lie merely in its title but in its logic.” I agree! And in no area is this logic more profound than in eduction and ICT. “Radda’s background as an educationist brings coherence to reform. An investment of over N120 billion—about a quarter of the annual budget—shows that education is seen not as a token but as the foundation for mobility and competitiveness,” Peterside further wrote. What is going on in Katsina today is a Radda-engineered digital revolution. Many outside the state or Northwest region may not have noticed. But it is a revolution that will, sooner than later, take the entire country by storm. The man is quietly but steadfastly rewriting the story of Katsina from a state scarred by terrorism to one where the young are being equipped with the skills and knowledge without which life in the future becomes less competitive and drab.

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