The Governor of Kaduna State in Nigeria, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has appointed 2011 Tutu Fellow Muhammad Sani Dattijo as his new Chief of Staff. Previously, he served as the Commissioner of Planning and Budget and was also the Director of Strategy for the Governor’s 2019 re-election campaign. In 2015, he joined the Kaduna State Excecutive Council as its youngest member.
As budget czar, he was acknowledged as a champion of reform and was instrumental in moving Kaduna state to commence the implementation of the Open Governance Partnership and presenting and delivering budgets ahead of time to the state legislature.
Muhammad is the Governor’s third Chief of Staff. Feedback on the governor's announcement on Twitter was positive, with the governor being congratulated on appointing a young Nigerian to the role.
Previous holders of the office include Muhammad Bashir Saidu and Hadiza Bala Usman who was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority. Muhammad is an international development expert. He served as a policy adviser at the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General under of Ban Ki Moon in New York where he was a member of the core team that developed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In 2018, while he was the Kaduna budget commissioner, he was appointed to the World Bank Advisory Council as a member of its Expert Advisory Council on Citizen Engagement.
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