Media Compact: The 10-Year Pact, Governance Index to Track Northern Governors

A coalition of media executives and regional leaders has unveiled a groundbreaking 10-year strategic framework alongside an independent "governance scoreboard" designed to actively track and grade the performance of political leaders across Northern Nigeria.

The initiative, dubbed the Abuja Media Compact (2026 - 2036), was formally launched by the Liberty Media Group on June 18, following resolutions reached at the second Liberty Symposium in Abuja.

Billed as Africa’s first media-led regional transformation framework, the compact signals a deliberate shift by indigenous press organizations from passive observers of regional decay to active drivers of socioeconomic revival.

The centerpiece of this decade-long initiative is the establishment of the Liberty Index on Northern Development and Competitiveness (LI-NDC).  

Rather than relying on government press releases, the LI-NDC will operate as an aggressive, data-driven, independent watchdog.

It will periodically evaluate and publicly publish performance data on Northern state governments, measuring critical and sensitive indicators:

• Institutional Accountability: Tracking fiscal responsibility and subnational transparency.

• Policy Implementation: Evaluating whether multi-billion-naira state budgets translate into actual grassroots development.

• Leadership Effectiveness: Measuring responses to youth unemployment, infrastructural deficits, and human capital growth.

The Index aims to provide an unvarnished, credible reference point for international investors, development partners, and everyday citizens seeking objective insights into which states are performing and which are lagging.

According to the compact’s conveners, including Alh. Ahmed Tijjani Ramalan, Mustapha T. Ramalan, and Hajiya Aisha T. Ramalan, the scale of the crisis facing Northern Nigeria requires the fourth estate to step into the vacuum left by political rhetoric.

"The Abuja Media Compact represents a historic first-of-its-kind strategic media-led initiative in Africa," the group stated.

"It is designed not merely to report development but to actively catalyze, track, and sustain regional transformation through strategic advocacy, accountability, and thought leadership."

The 10-Year Agenda seeks to shift public discourse toward regional manufacturing, technology, and modernized agriculture; use the Liberty Index to replace political sentiment with cold, hard empirical data; mobilize youth and women’s organizations to demand institutional accountability; and forge direct policy linkages between academia, the private sector, and grassroots communities.