Our Borno, Our Success: Why the Next Administration Must Look Beyond the Capital

By Aishatu Alhaji Kabu

Last week, two issues shook the Nigerian social media space. One of them stopped many of us in our scrolling: President Tinubu had called on governors to reduce wasteful spending needless flyovers and showpiece projects  and invest instead in human capital development and social interventions.

For the first time, the President had spoken the mind of many Nigerians, including my own. Because, to be honest, the number of big projects and flyovers in a state capital shouldn’t be the only yardstick for rating how successful an administration is.

Let me be clear from the outset: this is not an argument against development in cities. It is an argument that city development should not come at the expense of rural and human capital development of good road networks, reliable electricity, functioning hospitals, and, most importantly, the kind of industrialization that creates jobs for our teeming young people.

So what does a presidential comment about flyovers have to do with Borno? Everything, as it turns out  because as 2027 approaches, those aspiring to lead the state are already quietly shaping the blueprints that will govern the next four to eight years of our lives.

A Foundation Already Laid
The reassuring part of this story is that Borno is not starting from zero. Governor Zulum will leave office in May 2027, but he is leaving behind something rare in Nigerian governance: a long-view plan. The 25-Year Development Framework and its accompanying 10-Year Strategic Transformation Initiative were built to outlast any single administration.

The plan rests on five pillars, and tellingly, the first two are Human Capital Development and Leadership in Agriculture not roads to the airport, not city beautification. The vision behind it is a Borno that is peaceful and stable, with 70% of its population economically productive by 2030.

Zulum himself has said the plan was designed to “outlive his administration.” Read plainly, that is an instruction to whoever comes next: this is not your blueprint to rewrite. It is your foundation to build on.

The Test Ahead: Making Local Government Autonomy Real
Here is where the story gets serious and interesting. Local government autonomy is no longer a talking point; it is now a reality. And for people in the village, like me, the expectation that comes with it is simple: LG resources should address LG problems. Not capital projects concentrated in MMC and Jere. Not development that only reaches the LGAs with “godfathers” in the circle.

If this autonomy means anything, it means every local government should be free to use its resources to develop its own communities and set its own priorities. President Tinubu’s call, applied to Borno, means something very concrete: when a local government receives its allocation, the people of Bama, Gwoza, Marte, and Guzamala should be able to see it — in their primary health center, their solar street light, their feeder road, their school.

To his credit, Governor Zulum has already shown this is possible. Development, under his watch, has gone beyond the state capital. In the last six years, eight new general hospitals have opened in Magumeri, Mafa, Gubio, Dikwa, Uba, Damboa, Hawul, and Kwaya Kusar. Over 80 primary health centers have been upgraded. Roughly two million people have been resettled.
The next administration’s task is to deepen that culture, not abandon it. Because if development keeps pooling in MMC and Jere — or in whichever city becomes the new center of gravity  then the whole point of both LG autonomy and the 25-Year Plan will have been defeated.

What Rural Borno Is Still Waiting For
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Many communities displaced by years of conflict have made it back home  but coming home has not meant the struggle is over. Five things stand between where these communities are and where the 25-Year Plan promises they will be.
Electricity comes first. There is no honest way to talk about

“Leadership in Agriculture” while a farmer in Abadam cannot power a cold room or even charge his phone. Solar mini-grids and rural electrification cannot remain an afterthought  they have to be a priority.

Roads follow close behind. Feeder roads determine whether produce from Kukawa and Mobbar, and agricultural goods from Damboa, reach Maiduguri’s markets intact or spoil along the way.

Working hospitals and schools matter more than new buildings. The structures are largely there already. What is missing is equipment, drugs, and teachers inside them  along with the TVET and skills training that would let graduates leave with jobs, not just certificates.

Livelihood is the piece that makes resettlement mean something. Moving a family back to their village without a means of survival is not resettlement  it is just relocating them from one camp to another.

And finally, the shift from emergency to recovery has to be enforced, not just planned. To be fair, the Zulum administration saw this coming early  recovery, resilience, and livelihoods were written into the 25-Year Development Framework from the very start. That was the right instinct. But here we are in 2026, still hearing from donors that the only thing they can fund is “emergency, life-saving” support. Displacement in Borno began in 2014. Twelve years on, why is emergency still the only conversation available to us? What our people need now is resilience building, economic recovery, livelihoods, and peacebuilding.

Setting the Terms With Donors
This is where the next administration has to take a firmer stand than the last. It should centralize coordination of all humanitarian and donor interventions, and insist that every one of them align with the 25-Year Development Plan not the other way around.

If a partner arrives in 2026 offering only emergency response, Borno should be able to say, with due respect: “Thank you, but our priority now is recovery. If that doesn’t fit your mandate, please take your resources elsewhere.”
Our people cannot be left cycling through vulnerability indefinitely simply because someone else’s funding template has not caught up with where Borno actually is.

A Word to the Next Governor
Your Excellency, sir as you write your blueprint, hold on to Borno’s slogan for the 25-Year Plan: ‘Our Borno, Our Success.’ That ‘our’ has to include the boy in Damasak, the woman in Monguno or Damboa, and the teacher in Askira/Uba and Marte. Not just Maiduguri.
Protect the 25-Year Plan. Domesticate it.

Work with LG chairmen, traditional rulers, and the people themselves, so that projects follow the plan not politics. President Tinubu was right about one thing above all: it is time to chase impact, not optics.
Because Borno’s glory was never going to be found in one big project. It lives in the farm that is producing, the clinic that has drugs on its shelves, and the school that has a teacher standing in front of the class.

If the next blueprint gets rural development and human capital right, then, InshaAllah, Borno will reclaim the prosperity that was always its birthright. But if it chases another round of needless flyovers, the state will still be waiting  four or eight years from now for an administration it can honestly call successful.

Aishatu Kabu
From Damboa. Writes in Maiduguri.
August 8, 2026