Dutse, Aug.28, 2026
When Jigawa State was created on August 27, 1991, it emerged from the old Kano State with enormous challenges, but also immense possibilities waiting to be discovered.
Thirty-five years later, politicians, administrators, traditional institutions, development partners and citizens are understandably reflecting on the individuals and institutions that contributed to Jigawa’s remarkable journey.
Yet, beneath the familiar catalogue of political achievements lies another important story, the story of the media and its contribution to documenting, explaining, promoting and interrogating Jigawa’s development.
From newspapers and radio to television, news agencies, online platforms and social media, the media has remained an important bridge between government, citizens, businesses, investors and the outside world.
In the early years, the challenge was not merely developing Jigawa, but convincing Nigerians that the newly created state possessed the capacity, resources and determination to build a prosperous future.
The media helped tell that story.
Through news reports, features, interviews, documentaries, editorials and development-focused programmes, journalists gradually brought Jigawa’s emerging possibilities into the national conversation.
Agriculture became one of the strongest narratives, particularly because of Jigawa’s vast arable land, irrigation opportunities, diverse crops and enormous potential for agricultural value addition.
Today, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission identifies agribusiness, light manufacturing, healthcare, tourism, energy and mining among the state’s major investment opportunities.
These opportunities did not exist in isolation. They required visibility, communication and sustained storytelling capable of transforming statistics, policies and projects into compelling investment propositions.
The media provided that visibility by reporting agricultural innovations, irrigation schemes, livestock initiatives, processing facilities, entrepreneurship programmes and the activities of farmers across the state.
Beyond agriculture, journalism helped showcase Jigawa’s human capital, cultural heritage, tourism assets, educational institutions, entrepreneurial communities and emerging commercial centres.
In doing so, the media performed an important economic function by converting local developments into information capable of reaching audiences far beyond Jigawa’s geographical boundaries.
For investors, information is fundamental. Before capital moves into a location, investors seek evidence about infrastructure, stability, markets, resources, government policies, opportunities and the business environment.
The media therefore became part of Jigawa’s informal investment-promotion architecture, amplifying information that could influence perceptions about the state and its economic prospects.
This role has become even more significant as Jigawa deliberately positions itself as an investment destination. InvestJigawa describes its mandate as promoting and facilitating private-sector investments capable of creating jobs and prosperity.
The relationship between development and media, however, is not simply about publicity.
A responsible media must celebrate progress while asking difficult questions about sustainability, accountability, inclusion and the actual impact of government interventions.
That watchdog responsibility has also contributed to development.
By reporting citizens’ concerns, highlighting gaps in public services, scrutinising policies and giving communities platforms to express their experiences, journalists have helped place development closer to the people.
The media has consequently served both as a mirror and a megaphone, reflecting the realities of Jigawa while amplifying achievements, opportunities, challenges and aspirations to wider audiences.
Its contribution is particularly evident during major government programmes, investment initiatives, development conferences and public policy reforms, when media coverage extends conversations beyond official venues.
The emergence of digital journalism has expanded this responsibility considerably.
Today, a story produced in Dutse can reach investors, policymakers, development organisations and Jigawa indigenes across Nigeria and around the world within minutes.
This digital transformation has changed the economics of visibility. Jigawa no longer depends exclusively on national newspapers or broadcast networks to tell its story, local media can increasingly reach global audiences directly.
Social media has further democratised the process, enabling government agencies, businesses, entrepreneurs, farmers and community organisations to communicate their activities and opportunities without traditional gatekeepers.
Nevertheless, greater visibility also demands greater professionalism. Development journalism must distinguish between genuine investment opportunities and promotional claims, between measurable progress and political rhetoric, and between publicity and public interest.
As Jigawa celebrates 35 years, therefore, the media deserves recognition not merely for reporting the state’s history, but for helping shape how that history is understood.
Every report about a successful farmer, an expanding enterprise, a new road, a school, an investment, an innovation or a development project contributes to the state’s collective narrative.
Equally, every investigative report exposing failure, waste, abandoned projects or citizens’ grievances strengthens the demand for better governance and more responsive institutions.
The media’s contribution is consequently neither exclusively celebratory nor adversarial. Its greatest value lies in providing credible information through which citizens, governments and investors can make informed decisions.
Jigawa’s development story has never belonged exclusively to politicians. It belongs to farmers, teachers, civil servants, entrepreneurs, traditional rulers, professionals, development partners, journalists and millions of citizens who have contributed in different ways.
At 35, the state therefore has an opportunity to recognise the media as a strategic development stakeholder not simply as an observer standing at the sidelines of progress.
The next chapter requires more than reporting what Jigawa has achieved. It requires stronger storytelling around what the state can become, backed by credible data, professional journalism and evidence-based reporting.
Jigawa possesses substantial agricultural, mineral, commercial and human-resource potential, including opportunities that national investment authorities already identify across several economic sectors.
The challenge ahead is to transform these potentials into bankable opportunities and communicate them effectively to the Nigerian and international investment community.
That task will require journalists who understand economics, investment, agriculture, technology, governance and development not merely journalists who report events.
It will require media organisations capable of producing investigative reports, investment features, documentaries, data journalism and compelling multimedia narratives capable of competing for attention in a crowded global information marketplace.
Most importantly, it will require a constructive relationship between government and media one founded on access to information, professional independence, mutual respect and recognition of journalism’s developmental responsibility.
Thirty-five years after its creation, Jigawa has accumulated a rich archive of transformation, struggle, achievement and aspiration. Much of that history survives because journalists recorded it.
Politicians may rightly recount the roads they built, policies they initiated, institutions they established and investments they attracted. But the media helped ensure those stories travelled beyond their immediate locations.
It carried Jigawa from government offices and project sites into homes, boardrooms, newsrooms and public conversations across Nigeria and beyond.
The media did not build every road, establish every school, cultivate every farm or attract every investor. But it helped make many of those efforts visible, understandable and open to public scrutiny.
That is the media’s enduring contribution to Jigawa at 35: not merely chronicling the journey of the “New World,” but helping the world discover what the New World has to offer.
As the state looks toward its next 35 years, the partnership between development and credible journalism must therefore become stronger, more strategic and more ambitious.
Because a state cannot fully market what the world does not know, and it cannot sustainably develop what its citizens cannot see, understand, question and believe in.
Aisha Ahmed ✍ from Dutse, Jigawa state capital.
