Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni has attributed the state’s progress in combating the Boko Haram insurgency to strong collaboration with security agencies and the willingness of local communities to provide timely intelligence on the activities of insurgents.

Speaking at the 16th African Business Leadership Awards (ABLA) in Westminster, London, Buni said the state’s adoption of both kinetic and non-kinetic strategies helped build public trust, encouraging residents to support security efforts with critical information.

The event was chaired by former Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and attended by former heads of state, ministers, central bank governors, parliamentarians, diplomats, business leaders and development partners from across Africa and beyond.

Addressing participants on the theme, “Leadership in an Era of Uncertainty: Building Resilience, Inclusion, and Shared Prosperity in Africa: The Yobe State Experience,” the governor said his administration began by sensitising citizens to see the fight against insurgency as a collective responsibility.

“We started with a vigorous sensitisation programme for the citizens to appreciate the government’s war against insurgency and other violence as a collective war that involves everyone,” he said.

According to him, while security agencies pursued military operations, the state government focused on community engagement and confidence-building.

“This approach worked very positively, and locals started providing strategic and timely information on the movements and hideouts of non-state actors fighting the government and the populace.

“Parents, who were hitherto adamant in supporting the government, started volunteering critical and useful information on criminal activities in their communities, and it became all-inclusive and everyone’s business,” Buni said.

The governor explained that as security improved, the government rebuilt infrastructure destroyed during the conflict and encouraged public institutions to return to affected communities.

He said the measures also enabled internally displaced persons to voluntarily return home, rebuild their houses and restore their livelihoods.

Buni noted that his administration declared a state of emergency in primary and basic education, reconstructing 301 schools destroyed by insurgents, establishing more than 20 new schools, recruiting 7,230 teachers and training 12,714 others.

He added that over 50,000 students had received scholarships to study in tertiary institutions within Nigeria and abroad.

According to him, the investments in education were aimed at countering the ideology of insurgents who opposed formal education while boosting school enrolment across the state.

Buni said the Federal Ministry of Education had recognised Yobe’s implementation of the basic education policy as a model for other states.

On healthcare, the governor said his administration had established functional primary healthcare centres in 142 of the state’s 178 political wards, with work ongoing in the remaining 36 wards.

Speaking, Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, represented by the state’s Commissioner for Information, Declan Emelumba, said Africa’s development would largely depend on the performance of subnational governments.

He argued that state governments remain closest to the people and therefore bear the greatest responsibility for delivering essential services.

Uzodimma said his administration had transformed infrastructure in Imo, rebuilding more than 130 strategic roads and restoring electricity to communities that had gone without public power for over two decades through the state’s “Light Up Imo” project.