Rethinking representation: Sustainable development vs election time donations — Southern Kaduna as case study

To: Southern Kaduna politicians

In Nigeria’s democracy, particularly in Southern Kaduna, electoral seasons often bring with them a cascade of temporary generosity: motorcycles, rice, wrappers, cash tokens, hastily graded roads, and boreholes.

These are touted as “dividends of democracy,” yet they rarely outlive the election cycle.

In their wake, the underlying structural issues of development—access to education, healthcare, transportation, and economic opportunities—remain painfully unresolved.

One of the most glaring failures is the persistent neglect of rural infrastructure, especially roads.

Successive governments prioritize urban roads for visibility and political optics, while economically vital rural roads are ignored.

This approach punishes the very communities that feed our cities. In Southern Kaduna, rural farmers are routinely exploited because they cannot transport their produce efficiently.

The roads are either in disrepair or non-existent, giving middlemen and buyers an excuse to slash farm gate prices.

This forces a reverse flow of wealth—from rural producers to urban profiteers. The most talked about Ankuwa kudu road and Yaji community bridge, Kachia amongst others which should be enabling regional trade and movement, instead symbolize the collapse of long-term infrastructure planning.

A green political philosophy would not allow this imbalance.

It recognizes that roads are not just about asphalt but about inclusion, economic justice, and resilience.

Green politics calls for ecologically sensitive yet economically enabling transport solutions—especially in rural areas where connectivity can transform lives.

Another persistent embarrassment is the continued glorification of borehole projects.

In many communities, politicians still commission boreholes with media fanfare, treating basic water access as a luxury rather than a right.

In reality, these boreholes are often surrounded by stagnant pools, unclean buckets, and litter—making them breeding grounds for infection.

From a public health perspective, communal boreholes can become point sources of disease transmission, especially in areas with poor sanitation practices.

A genuinely green, people-centered approach would focus on household-level water security solutions—empowering families to drill and maintain their own boreholes through subsidies, co-operatives, or community-driven development programs.

Water access should no longer be a political token; it should be a universally guaranteed standard.

Education, too, remains framed in outdated paradigms. In Southern Kaduna, scholarships are limited to token bursaries—one-off payments that barely cover a semester’s worth of needs.

These gestures do little to develop real capacity or create long-term human capital.

What the region needs is a deliberate policy that sends its brightest students to study globally relevant courses abroad—disciplines aligned with sustainable development and green innovation.

These include medicine, environmental sciences, maritime studies, international law, renewable energy technologies, and aeronautics.

Many of these are not offered in Nigeria or are better taught abroad. A strategic scholarship fund, underwritten by public or private partnerships, could build a future generation of leaders equipped to lift Southern Kaduna from the margins.

Investing in such specialized education abroad is not elitist—it’s pragmatic. Green politics, after all, is not only about environmentalism but also about investing in people as the primary resource of sustainable development.

The healthcare situation in Southern Kaduna is perhaps the most urgent indicator of structural neglect.

Primary healthcare centers across the region are chronically underfunded, understocked, and understaffed.

Most lack essential drugs, medical equipment, trained personnel, and even clean water.

Worse still, the rise in insecurity has made it nearly impossible for community health workers to serve remote villages.

Banditry have turned many rural outposts into no-go zones, cutting off thousands from routine immunizations, antenatal care, and disease prevention.

According to the World Health Organization, a functional primary healthcare system must provide essential medicines, trained personnel, safe water and sanitation, basic infrastructure, and meaningful community engagement. Southern Kaduna fails on nearly all counts.

This breakdown in healthcare delivery has pushed many into relying on herbal or traditional medicine.

In fact, up to 75% of Nigeria’s rural population now depends on such unregulated treatments(WHO).

While some herbal remedies may offer relief, the absence of dosage regulation, contamination and clinical oversight means the risk of harm is high.

The economic implications of poor health are massive. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria loses over $1.5 billion annually due to illness-related direct costs and lost productivity.

Globally, the World Health Organization reports that preventable health conditions cost developing countries over $500 billion annually.

These figures represent not just economic loss but human suffering and stalled development.

Southern Kaduna’s health crisis, therefore, is not a local problem—it is a national economic liability. Any serious leadership interested in lifting the region must prioritize healthcare as a productivity issue, not just a moral obligation.

In sum, what Southern Kaduna needs is not charity masquerading as politics, but strategic, green development that empowers communities structurally and sustainably.

Road construction should prioritize economic integration, not urban optics. Water infrastructure can be achieved by empowering households, not centralised communal boreholes that promote contamination and disease spread.

Education funding should build international-caliber expertise in fields that drive global sustainability. And healthcare must be restored as the cornerstone of productivity and human dignity.

Tokenism is no longer tenable. Boreholes, rice bags, and motorcycles may win votes, but they cannot build futures.

A green political agenda centered on equity, sustainability, and human capacity is the only path forward for Southern Kaduna—and, by extension, for Nigeria.

Jonathan Joshua Danjuma
Obar, Ankuwa Ward, Kachia LGA
Kaduna State, Nigeria

For Diaspora Digital Media Updates click on Whatsapp, or Telegram. For eyewitness accounts/ reports/ articles, write to: citizenreports@diasporadigitalmedia.com. Follow us on X (Fomerly Twitter) or Facebook