GOMBE State Governor and Chairman of the Northern Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NNGF), Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, CON, has taken the message of the Renewed Hope Agenda to senior academics and women Ulamas across Northern Nigeria, calling for stronger collaboration between government and intellectual communities to tackle the region’s development challenges.
News Point Nigeria reports that Governor Inuwa Yahaya spoke at separate stakeholders’ engagements with senior academics and women Ulamas in Northern Nigeria at the weekend in Abuja, organised by the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Political and Other Matters, Hon. Ibrahim Kabir Masari.
The engagements, which were organised by the Convener and Special Adviser to the President on Political and Other Matters, Hon. Ibrahim Kabir Masari, were held under the theme, “Consolidating the Renewed Hope Agenda: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Achievements and the Road to 2027,” and brought together hundreds of academics and women Islamic scholars to deliberate on critical issues confronting Northern Nigeria, as well as assess the interventions and policies of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The engagements were intended to broaden the conversation around the Renewed Hope Agenda beyond political structures, placing knowledge, faith leadership, community mobilisation and practical solutions at the centre of efforts to address the challenges confronting Northern Nigeria and Nigeria as a whole.
Governor Inuwa Yahaya, who is also the Secretary of the Renewed Hope Ambassadors, said the North could not overcome its multifaceted challenges without drawing extensively on the knowledge, experience and expertise of its intellectual community.
He identified insecurity, the growing number of out-of-school children, food security, vocational education, peaceful coexistence and farmer-herder conflicts as some of the critical areas requiring sustained attention and collective action.
On security, the Governor acknowledged the enormous challenges confronting the region but noted that there had been a gradual improvement since the advent of the Tinubu administration.
He said the progress should encourage stakeholders to deepen their collaboration with government in order to consolidate the gains and achieve lasting peace.
Addressing the challenge of out-of-school children, Governor Inuwa Yahaya stressed the need for academics and other experts to bring their perspectives and research to bear on developing sustainable solutions to the problem.
“We need to join our understanding with your perspective to deal with this situation,” he told the academics, emphasising the importance of evidence-based interventions.
The Governor also called for renewed emphasis on vocational education, describing it as a critical component of development that had been neglected for too long.
He argued that expanding vocational and skills-based education would equip young people with practical competencies, improve employability and create pathways to self-reliance.
On peaceful coexistence, Governor Inuwa Yahaya reminded stakeholders that Northern Nigeria is inherently diverse and that its diversity should be a source of strength rather than division.
He called for greater commitment to preventing and resolving farmer-herder conflicts, stressing that peaceful coexistence remained essential to the region’s agricultural productivity, economic development and social stability.
The Governor particularly commended President Tinubu for establishing a dedicated Ministry of Livestock Development, describing the initiative as an unprecedented and bold policy direction with the potential to transform the livestock sector and address longstanding farmer-herder challenges.
He urged stakeholders to support the policy and contribute ideas that would make it succeed.
Speaking directly to the academics, Governor Inuwa said the government needed their intellectual contributions to address the complex challenges facing the country.
“We need to benefit from your knowledge,” he said, urging the scholars to deploy their research, expertise and institutional experience in support of national development.
At the separate engagement with women Ulamas, organised in collaboration with the Muslim Intellectual Forum, the Governor commended the participants for their contributions to family values and faith propagation.
He said women Islamic scholars had an important role to play in promoting peaceful coexistence, responsible parenting, moral values and social cohesion, particularly at a time when families and communities were facing multiple pressures.
Governor Inuwa assured the participants that the engagements would not end in Kaduna, promising that similar consultations would be cascaded across the states of Northern Nigeria to deepen understanding, strengthen communication and ensure effective mobilisation around the Renewed Hope Agenda.
Earlier, the Convener of the engagements and Special Adviser to the President on Political and Other Matters, Hon. Ibrahim Kabir Masari, said the series of engagements were designed to create a structured platform for government to continuously consult with critical stakeholders.
Hon. Masari said the engagement with academics was not primarily political but an effort to harness knowledge and experience in finding solutions to the country’s numerous challenges.
He said the government needed the “knowledge, expertise, research and other academic contributions” of scholars to help Nigeria overcome its current difficulties and chart a more sustainable development path.
He explained that the initiative would be sustained, with mechanisms being developed to ensure that academics could be regularly consulted on policy and national development issues.
The Kaduna engagements were attended by political and government leaders, including the Governors of Kaduna, Borno and Yobe States, former Governors of Katsina and Zamfara States, serving Ministers and other senior government officials.
At the conclusion of the two separate sessions, communiqués were presented, encapsulating the resolutions reached by the participants.