Gov Abba’s KASSTOWA: Ending The Thirst Of Kano’s Forgotten Towns
By Abba Anwar
For years, the people of Tudun Wada, Gwarzo, Rano, Bichi and Karaye watched Kano city drink while they thirsted. Their towns had markets, schools, hospitals and thousands of families, yet when it came to water, they were treated as if they did not exist. Their schemes were built and abandoned, their pipes rusted, their taps ran dry, and nobody in government answered for them.
That story changed on Tuesday, 10th November 2026. A day like no other to the water industry in the state. My reader should come to understand that water is one of the major organs that keep our planet moving.
On that day, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf gave those forgotten towns an owner, a voice, and a future. He created the Kano State Small Towns Water Supply Agency, (KASSTOWA), an agency built solely to care for the water of small towns. For the first time in the history of Kano, a woman in Sumaila, a farmer in Rano, and a school child in Takai will know exactly who to call when water stops flowing.
So when the Ministry of Water Resources announced on Tuesday, 10th November 2026, that a new agency had been born, I asked the same question many people in Kano asked. What is this one for?
The agency is called KASSTOWA as given above. It was created under the Ministry of Water Resources, with the approval of Governor Yusuf. The Commissioner, Dr Dahiru M. Hashim, announced that Engr. Sani Bala Danbatta would serve as Acting Managing Director, and Aminu Mamman Yaro as Acting Deputy Managing Director, alongside other directors.
I have since spent time thinking about it, talking to people who understand water, and looking at what has happened in Kano in the last few years. This may be one of the most important things this administration has done, not because it is loud, but because it is quiet. It deals with a part of Kano that has been forgotten for a very long time.
Forgotten? Yes forgotten. For decades, Kano’s water system looked at only two places. The first was Kano metropolis. The Kano State Water Board concerned itself with Tamburawa, Challawa, Goron Dutse, the big plants, the big pipes, the big city. The second was the deep rural village. There, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASA) and donor programmes concerned themselves with hand pumps and boreholes.
Between those two, there was a BLIND SPOT, and that blind spot was the SMALL TOWNS. I am talking about Tudun Wada town, Gwarzo town, Bichi town, Karaye town, Rano town, Sumaila town, Takai town, Doguwa town. These are not villages. They are towns with 20,000, 50,000, sometimes 100,000 people or more. They have markets, they have schools, they have hospitals, they have growing populations. They had regional water schemes too, small treatment plants, overhead tanks, reticulation networks. But those schemes had no owner.
The Water Board would say they were not in the metropolis, so they were not theirs. RUWASA would say they were too big for hand pumps, so they were not theirs. So the schemes were built, commissioned with fanfare, photographed, and then abandoned. A pump would break and nobody would repair it. A pipe would leak and nobody would seal it. An operator would go unpaid and leave. Within two years, a scheme that cost N200 million would become a monument to waste.
That is why the Tudun Wada Water Treatment Plant was abandoned for years before this government revived it. That is why dozens of small town schemes across Kano became graveyards of rusted tanks.
KASSTOWA was created to end that orphanage. For the first time, small towns now have a father and mother in government. That sounds like a small thing, until you have lived in a town where nobody answers for your water.
According to the Commissioner, the agency will oversee the management of regional water schemes across the state, and improve water service delivery through effective management of those schemes. In plain language, that means five things, and I want to put them in plain language because water is too important to be left in official English.
FIRST, there is now one owner, one responsibility. Before KASSTOWA, if water stopped in a small town, the chairman would blame the Water Board, the Water Board would blame the Ministry, the Ministry would blame the Local Government. Now there is one address. If water stops in Sumaila, you know who to call. That alone will change behaviour.
SECOND, it is professional work. KASSTOWA is not a political outfit. It is headed by engineers. Engr. Danbatta is an engineer. That matters. Water is engineering. You need people who understand pumps, chlorination, pressure, leakage, and treatment. KASSTOWA will employ, train and retain operators, not casual labourers who disappear after elections.
THIRD, it moves us from construction to service. Kano has been very good at building water projects and very bad at running them. We are good at commissioning. We are bad at maintenance. KASSTOWA shifts the focus from we commissioned a scheme to we are supplying water every day. Its success will not be measured by ribbon cutting, but by hours of supply per day, by litres per person, by reduction in leakages.
FOURTH, there is the question of money, and we must be honest about it. A scheme that gives water free and collects nothing dies. A scheme that collects money but the money goes into the general government purse also dies, because there is no money to buy diesel, chlorine or spare parts. KASSTOWA creates the possibility of a ring fenced system, where money collected from small towns stays to maintain small town water. That is how water works in Lagos, in Kaduna, in South Africa, in the whole world. Without that, we are deceiving ourselves.
FIFTH, there is data. With one agency managing all regional schemes, Kano can now know how many schemes are functional, how many are down, where leakage is highest, where demand is growing. Without data, government is blind. KASSTOWA will give Kano eyes in every small town.
If this agency works, and I stress if, because creation is not the same as performance, the impact will be felt in ways that go far beyond a tap.
Start with health. When small town schemes die, people return to open wells, to contaminated streams, to water vendors selling water from unknown sources. That is where cholera comes from. That is where typhoid comes from. That is where children die from diarrhoea. In Kano, cholera outbreaks have repeatedly traced back to unsafe water in small towns. A functional KASSTOWA means treated, chlorinated water in small towns. That means fewer children dying from diarrhoea. That means fewer cholera outbreaks. That is not politics. That is life.
Then think about women and girls. In every small town in Kano, when water fails, it is women and girls who suffer. They walk two kilometres, three kilometres, to fetch water. They miss school. They miss business. They miss rest. KASSTOWA is, in truth, a women’s agency, even if nobody calls it that. Every hour of water it restores is an hour returned to a woman to trade, to learn, to rest. The United Nations says women in Africa spend 200 million hours a day collecting water. Kano’s share of that burden will fall if KASSTOWA works.
Think also about the economy. No investor will build a pure water factory, a bakery, a clinic, or a school in a town without water. No market can function without water for sanitation. No hospital can operate without water for delivery, for surgery, for cleaning. By guaranteeing water in small towns, KASSTOWA is guaranteeing that small towns can become economic centres, not just dormitories for Kano city. It will decongest Kano metropolis, because people will not need to migrate to the city just to find water.
Many small towns in Kano are farming towns, Tudun Wada, Rano, Gwarzo, Bunkure. Their dry season farming, their livestock, their processing depend on water. When the town scheme works, farmers can water their animals, wash their produce, and process their goods. In that sense, KASSTOWA is also a food security agency, even if its letterhead says water.
There is also jobs. KASSTOWA will create a new cadre of water professionals in Kano, pump operators, plumbers, water quality testers, billing officers, engineers. These are not temporary campaign jobs. They are permanent, skilled jobs based in the towns themselves. A young man in Karaye who learns to maintain a treatment plant will never be unemployed again in Nigeria. That is the kind of employment that stays. Abbka cika gwarzo!
And perhaps the most powerful impact is the one we do not measure with litres. It is trust. For 30 years, small town people watched government come, commission, and disappear. They lost trust. They stopped paying bills because they believed government would not deliver. If KASSTOWA delivers water consistently for six months, for twelve months, that trust will return. People will pay. People will protect the pipes from vandals, because the pipes are now theirs. That is how a water culture is built.
I know some people will ask, why should we trust this new agency when old ones failed? It is a fair question. My answer is that KASSTOWA did not come alone. It came after Governor Yusuf had already shown that he is willing to put money and muscle into water, not just paper.
I will mention those feats briefly, because they give KASSTOWA credibility. In April 2026, Governor Yusuf approved over N21.29 billion for Tamburawa and Challawa. Tamburawa, built to produce 150 million litres per day, was operating at only about 27 percent because flood in 2022 destroyed its raw water pump station. Challawa, built to produce 220 million litres per day, was functioning at less than 30 percent. Together, they were built to supply 370 million litres daily. They were delivering far below that. He did not hide that figure. He published it.
He revived the Goron Dutse Reservoir, abandoned for more than 30 years, with a capacity of about 39.8 million litres, and replaced old asbestos pipes with steel pipes. At Challawa, only 4 out of 16 filtration units were working when he came in. Today, all 16 have been restored. From 4 to 16. That is not a patch. That is a resurrection.
He revived the Tudun Wada Water Treatment Plant, restoring 2.2 million litres daily to Gawo, Tsauni, Tsohuwar Nitel and Unguwar Gabas, with a plan to expand to 4.5 million litres daily. These are things you can touch. They are not audio promises.
That is why I say many governors build, but few governors institutionalise. A governor who only rehabilitates a plant will be forgotten when the plant breaks again. A governor who creates an agency to keep the plant working has built something that will outlive his tenure. A politician fixes a tap for a photo. A statesman creates an institution to keep the tap running after he has left office. Governor Yusuf, by creating KASSTOWA after doing the rehabilitation, did both.
But let me not become a praise singer. Commendation without challenge is empty, and this Governor does not need praise singers. He needs partners.
To the leadership of KASSTOWA, my challenge is simple. In 90 days, publish a baseline. Tell Kano how many small town schemes exist, how many are functional, and how many litres you are producing daily. Let Kano measure you. If you hide, we will assume you are failing.
To the State Government, fund KASSTOWA, but do not politicise it. Allow it to recruit on merit, to collect revenue, to be audited, and to be protected from interference. An agency that becomes a dumping ground for political loyalists will die faster than the schemes it was created to save.
To the communities, own it. Report leakages. Report vandalism. Pay your bills. The 15 kilometres of pipes stolen from Chalawa before should never happen again. The community that protects its water protects its life.
If those three are done, KASSTOWA will not just be another agency on paper. It will be the agency that finally brought SDG 6, Clean Water for All, to the forgotten middle of Kano.
In Kano today, the taps are no longer whispering. They are speaking. And the loudest voice in that new chorus is not just the roar of the big plants at Tamburawa and Challawa. It is the quiet, steady hum of a small town pump in Tudun Wada, in Rano, in Gwarzo, kept alive by a new agency that finally says small towns matter.
Governor Yusuf has dug up the past to give Kano water. With KASSTOWA, he has also built the future to keep it flowing.
Water has returned. Let us keep it flowing.
Anwar writes from Kano
Thursday, 12th November, 2026