Tasks Team Leader

Prof. Mohammed Kuta Yahaya

Prof Mohammed Kuta Yahaya is a graduate of the University of Calabar. He obtained his Masters and Doctoral Degrees in Agricultural Extension from the University of Ibadan. He started his university teaching and research career at the University of Ibadan as an Assistant Lecturer in 1995 and rose through the ranks to become a Professor of Agricultural Extension and Development Communication at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 2008. Professor Yahaya is author of over 100 scholarly publications in reputable national and international journals. Some of his books include: Indigenous music for Entertainment Education; Ignorance is a disease; Development Communication: Lessons from Change and Social Engineering Projects; Communication for Social Change in Developing Countries; Gender and Communication Variables in Agricultural Information System. He has also been a Lead Consultant to many national and international organisations on many global initiatives including the World Bank, UNICEEF and Development Activities International (DAI) among others in the area of positive deployment of communication strategies to achieve development objectives. A champion of paradigm shift that inform his active participation in various interventions, integration of Development Communication, Grievances Redress Mechanism and Citizens Engagement in conflict management, development policies especially the national Agricultural Extension Policy for Nigeria and indeed a principal actor in national development agenda setting and creating awareness and understanding of social change processes using innovative approaches that engender real development and practices of governance, inter-governmental relations and democratic ideals in society. Professor Yahaya at different times served the nation in different capacities particularly, as the Director, University of Ibadan Media Centre, facilitated the establishment of the first campus radio in the Nigerian University system. He was beckoned to serve his home state of Niger between 2007- 2015. First, as Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and later as Chief of Staff, Commissioner in the Ministries of Information; Agriculture with concurrent responsibility for Tertiary Education. He was Chairman, Forum of Secretaries to Nineteen State Governments [2007-2011], Coordinated the establishment of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation [2008- 2010] and Northern States Committee on Reconciliation, Healing & Security between 2012 and 2013 that produced the blue print for the mitigation of Boko Haram Insurgency and other security issues in the north. He also coordinated the Northern States' Governors' Forum [NSGF]- United States Institute for Peace [USIP] Symposium held in Washington DC in March 2014. He was a recipient of the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa [CODESRIA], Dakar, Senegal Laureate for Doctoral Thesis in 1993 and was awarded MacAthur Foundation Grant for the Fund for Leadership Development Programme in 1997; CODESRIA nominee to UNESCO, Dakar, Senegal for the Most Outstanding Doctoral Thesis (1998); CODESRIA Book Project Awardee – 2006. He was honoured as one of the 2000 Outstanding st Intellectuals of the 21 Century by the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England in 2001. Prof Yahaya is a member of many learned and professional bodies, particularly the International Association for Media and Communication Research - (IAMCR), life member, Agricultural Extension Society of Nigeria (AESON); Nigeria Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (NIFAAS) and Rural Sociological Association of Nigeria (RuSAN) mkyahaya@yahoo.com