The Directorate

Bala Muhammad - Director General

Bala A. Muhammad, Director General of the Kano State of Nigeria’s Directorate of Societal Reorientation (A Daidaita Sahu), is an internationally renowned journalist, broadcaster, teacher, author, speaker, researcher, and World Bank communication consultant. Beginning in 2001, Mr. Muhammad had studied for a PhD at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He had earlier obtained a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from the American University in Cairo, Egypt, on a competitive African Graduate Fellowship. A 1980s graduate of Mass Communications from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, specializing in broadcasting, the Director General was retained as a lecturer at his alma mater, where he taught for several years. The Director General’s other qualifications include a Post-Graduate Certificate in Telecommunications Reform from the University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, as well as an Advanced Public Relations Management Certificate of the London Corporate Training Institute. An accomplished broadcaster, Mr. Muhammad had worked at the World Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London, in both the Hausa Service and English to Africa. Before the BBC, he had been a correspondent for the Hausa Service of Radio Deutschewelle, the Voice of Germany, first in Cairo, Egypt, and later in Kano, Nigeria. A prolific writer, the Director General is at present a columnist on the Weekly Trust and Sunday Triumph newspapers. Before then, he had been a columnist on the now defunct Lagos-based Diet newspaper, where he penned a weekly column, Vintage Musings. He was also for a long period a regular contributor on the opinion pages of the Guardian newspaper of Lagos, the Kaduna-based New Nigerian, and the Kano-based Triumph. Internationally, he had written for Cairo’s Al-Ahram Weekly and the London-based Impact newsmagazine, among others. He is also a published academic, having written many scholarly articles for reputable journals.

A communication resource person and consultant, Mr. Muhammad had worked and advised many organizations including the Nigeria’s Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), the Advertising Practitioners Association of Nigeria (APCON), the National Council on Arts and Culture (NCAC), the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), the Legal Research and Resource Development Centre (LRRDC), among many others. The Director General of the Kano State Societal Reorientation (A Daidaita Sahu) was a Deputy Chief Press Secretary to Vice President Atiku Abubakar in 2000, and was until his appointment as DG A DAIDAITA SAHU a World Bank Communication Advisor at the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) Abuja. Mr. Muhammad is a member of the London-based International Public Relations Association (IPRA), the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) of England and Wales as well as the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ). He is also a member of the Nairobi-based African Council on Communication Education (ACCE), as well as the Association of Nigerian Writers (ANA), among other professional bodies. His academic interests include behaviour change communication, African Film, New Communications Technologies, and radio. Mr. Muhammad’s distinctions include being a participant of the International Visitor Programme of the United States’ Department of State in April 2001; pilot presenter of the Press Review of the Hausa Service of the BBC, London, in 1999; holder of the prestigious African Graduate Fellowship of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, from 1994; and holder of the Best Student in English Language Prize while in secondary school in 1976. Fluent in Hausa, English and Arabic, the Director General is extensively traveled and is married and blessed with children.

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