Mustapha Yahuza
Some of the most consequential moments in governance do not arrive with sirens or slogans. They come quietly, carried by decisions that restore trust rather than chase applause.
One such moment unfolded in Kano in December 2025, when the state chose to acknowledge what it had postponed for more than a decade: the unpaid obligations owed to those who had once served it.
For many years, former Local Government councillors across Kano State lived with a peculiar form of civic exile. They had served at the tier of government closest to the people, where roads are not theories and healthcare is not an abstraction. Yet, their severance gratuities and statutory allowances remained unsettled.
Furniture, accommodation, and leave entitlements slipped from policy into neglect, surviving only as entries in ageing files and fading hopes.
Administrations changed. Political banners were lowered and raised anew. But the debt endured.
In Nigeria’s political culture, such liabilities are often treated as relics of inconvenient history, especially by governments elected on opposition platforms. Discontinuity becomes doctrine and memory becomes a casualty.
Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf chose a different path. Instead of weaponising the past, his administration accepted responsibility for it.
Between May and December 2025, the Kano State Government carried out a three-phase settlement that disbursed a total of fifteen billion sixty-seven naira to former Local Government Council members across the state.
The first instalment, paid on 28 May 2025, amounted to one billion, eight hundred and five million three hundred thousand eight hundred and twenty-three naira twenty kobo (N1,805,003,823.20) and covered 903 beneficiaries who served between 2014 and 2017.
The second tranche, released on 18 August 2025, totalled five billion six hundred and four million, two hundred and five thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight naira seventy kobo (N5,604,205,998.70) and benefited 1,198 former councillors who served between 2018 and 2020.
The final instalment, concluded in December, involved eight billion two hundred fifty eight million four hundred and twenty four thousand eight hundred and twenty three naira, twenty kobo (N8,258,424,823.20) paid to 1,371 beneficiaries who served between 2021 and 2024.
Altogether, three thousand four hundred and seventy two (3,472) former council members across Kano’s 44 local governments benefited from the exercise.
When aggregated, the payments translate to an average payout of about four million five hundred dollars per beneficiary, varying by tenure and entitlement.
Perhaps, for many, it marked the first real sense of closure after years of waiting and this was not charity. It was duty fulfilled.
Indeed, the payments were neither rushed nor symbolic. They were structured, verified, and openly executed, supported by documentation and institutional oversight.
Even serving councillors whose tenure began in 2024 were included, receiving fifty per cent of their furniture allowance in the interest of fairness.
Therefore, in a system long shaped by selective justice, the consistency was notable.
Behind the figures were lives shaped by uncertainty. Former councillors postponed medical care, delayed children’s education, or adjusted livelihoods around promises that never materialised.
Grassroots public service offers little protection from economic vulnerability, and when the state defaults on its commitments, families bear the cost quietly, not institutions.
One such voice gave the story human clarity. Abdulsalam Ishaq Jigo, a former councillor from Kumbotso Local Government Area, described the settlement as both relief and redemption.
He praised Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf for what he called an act of kindness and fairness, noting that the payments were made without regard to party affiliation or political history.
“For years, we were told to keep waiting,” Jigo said. “We served Kano sincerely, but our entitlements were ignored. This government did not ask which party we belonged to. It simply did what was right.”
Without bitterness, he recalled that repeated appeals under the previous administration of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje produced no result. What remained in his voice was relief that the burden had finally been lifted.
Politically, the decision carried uncommon weight. Opposition governments are often expected to rule in contrast rather than continuity.
Yet here, continuity was raised into a principle. By settling obligations incurred under previous administrations, the Abba Yusuf government showed that accountability does not depend on authorship, and that justice does not change with party labels.
The intervention went beyond compensation. It was paired with reforms aimed at preventing recurrence, including improved payroll systems, digital record keeping, realistic budgeting, and disciplined fiscal planning.
These are the quiet changes that rarely dominate headlines, yet determine whether justice becomes routine or remains an exception.
Local Government remains the foundation of Nigeria’s development framework. It is where education is first encountered, healthcare is most urgently required, and public trust is most easily broken or rebuilt.
By honouring former councillors, the state strengthened the morale of those currently serving and reassured those yet to serve that sacrifice will not be repaid with neglect.
History will argue over parties and power, over who stood where and when. But citizens remember governance differently.
They remember the moment a debt was paid, a dignity restored, a long wait finally ended. In that memory, justice is not an abstract promise but a tangible act, measured not by speeches but by settlements.
Kano’s lesson is quiet yet enduring, that authority gains meaning when it chooses conscience over convenience, and that leadership, at its best, is simply the courage to do what should have been done long ago.
When the dust of campaigns settles, it is such moments that remain, not loud enough to cheer, but deep enough to last.
Mustapha writes from Kundila Zoo road