Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani has been invested as Patron of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, with Information Minister Mohammed Idris describing him as one of Nigeria’s most communication-friendly executives and a natural fit for the honour.
The investiture took place on Tuesday at the newly commissioned Brigadier General Abba Kyari Banquet Hall, adjoining Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna, on the sidelines of the 2026 Nigerian Public Relations Week.
Speaking shortly after the ceremony, the Minister credited Governor Uba Sani’s receptiveness to professional counsel as a key factor in the Institute’s decision, recalling how the governor promptly restored Kaduna’s Ministry of Information in May 2025 after the federal government advised him to do so — more than a decade after it was scrapped by a previous administration.
“In December 2024, His Excellency joined us at the National Council on Information and National Orientation meeting. At that time, Kaduna State had no Ministry of Information. When we gave the advice to restore that Ministry, he immediately did that,” Idris said.
The Minister also disclosed that when the Institute approached him to inform the governor about NIPR Week, Uba Sani agreed without hesitation to host the event in Kaduna after a brief explanation.
The theme of this year’s PR Week — *Nigeria’s Food Security: From Policy Paper to Public Plates – The Imperatives of Public Relations* — drew the keynote address from Ambassador Dr Brylyne Chitsunge, a South Africa-based food security expert and Chief Executive of Elpasso Farms.
Receiving the honour, Governor Uba Sani said the theme resonated directly with his administration’s agenda, describing the journey from policy to food on the table as “a deliberate process built on credibility, clarity, and connection.”
“Policies succeed not only because they are well designed, but because they are understood, trusted, and embraced by the people they are meant to serve. This is why public relations must no longer be viewed as a peripheral function, but as a central pillar of governance,” he said.
The governor used the occasion to highlight his administration’s agricultural drive, noting that when he assumed office in 2023, Kaduna’s agriculture budget stood at a mere ₦1.48 billion — just 0.4 percent of the state’s total budget. That figure, he said, has since risen sharply: to ₦23 billion in 2024, ₦74.02 billion in 2025, and ₦108 billion in 2026 — the last two figures surpassing the Malabo Declaration benchmark of 10 percent of national budgets for agriculture.
Uba Sani said his administration’s flagship Tallafin Noma programme had supported over 120,000 smallholder farmers with improved seeds, fertilisers, agrochemicals and mechanisation, while the state had executed what he described as the largest fertiliser distribution in its history — over 900 truckloads amounting to 540,000 bags distributed free to 300,000 farmers across all 23 local government areas.
He added that more than 10,000 solar-powered water pumping machines had been distributed to farmers to boost dry and wet season agriculture and expand irrigation access.
“Agriculture must be continuous, not seasonal; inclusive, not selective,” the governor said, framing the investments as central to repositioning the sector from the margins of policy to the heart of Kaduna’s development agenda.Minister Explains Why NIPR Picked Uba Sani as Patron — ‘One of Nigeria’s MostMinister Explains Why NIPR Picked Uba Sani as Patron — ‘One of Nigeria’s Most
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