Almost three years after Kaduna and Kano states launched ambitious campaigns to plant 10 million trees each to halt desertification, reaching a clear verdict is difficult. Both governments have generated a steady stream of announcements, seedling distributions, and partnership launches. Yet as their four-year tenures approach their end, neither state has published a comprehensive, audited accounting of how many of those 10 million trees were actually planted, how many survived, and what measurable impact they have had on the advancing Sahara. The available evidence suggests a gap between rhetorical commitment and verifiable environmental outcomes that should concern both voters and federal partners.
Kaduna: A Clear Target, Murky Accounting
Kaduna’s 10 million tree pledge was formally articulated in early 2025, when Commissioner of Environment Abubakar Buba told stakeholders the state would plant 10 million trees over four years to mitigate climate change and protect the environment. At that time, Buba disclosed that approximately 1.7 million trees had been planted in 2024, with a promise to double that figure in 2025. The state’s nurseries reportedly generated the seedlings, and the commissioner emphasised that residents should not merely plant but nurture trees to maturity.
Beyond these figures, however, Kaduna’s public record grows thin. The state has trumpeted partnerships and localised efforts: a World Bank-sponsored initiative in Lere that planted 6,000 trees using a “mixed forest” approach combining native windbreaks with economic species like mango and neem, and a civil society effort in Sabon Gari that put 2,000 seedlings into three communities. These are commendable micro-level interventions, but they are drops in a bucket relative to a 10 million target. No updated cumulative figure for 2025 or 2026 appears in the public domain. The commissioner’s pledge to “double” 2024’s planting would imply a trajectory toward roughly 3.4 million trees by the end of 2025, but whether that was achieved remains unverified.
The more substantive question is survival. Kaduna’s own officials have acknowledged that planting is easy and nurturing is hard. In the Lere project, the World Bank partnership brought irrigation and monitoring systems to help saplings survive their first dry season. But for the broader state programme, no survival data has been released. Northern Nigeria’s harsh harmattan and prolonged dry seasons can kill young trees at alarming rates without sustained care. A headline figure of trees “planted” means little if half or more perish within two years.
Kano: Higher Visibility, Similar Verification Gaps
Kano’s approach has been more publicly choreographed, partly because the state hosts the relocated headquarters of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW), which moved from Abuja to Kano in 2026. That federal proximity has given Kano’s efforts a national platform. In 2025, the state distributed 5.5 million tree seedlings across its 44 local government areas, according to state officials. The commissioner for environment, Dahiru Hashim, has also claimed that Kano has “planted millions of trees and restored more than 50,000 hectares of degraded land”.
But the 10 million figure itself has shifted in meaning. A 2026 Tribune report described Kano’s plan as distributing 10 million seedlings, not necessarily planting and nurturing them to maturity. The distinction matters enormously. A seedling handed to a farmer or school group is not a tree; it is an intention. Kano has introduced digital monitoring systems, including GPS-verified planting locations and survival reports, which is a more sophisticated approach than most states can claim. Yet no public dashboard or annual survival audit has been released. The state’s climate governance ranking reportedly rose from 35th to 3rd nationwide, a notable achievement in policy terms, but rankings are not forests.
Kano has also benefited from federal and donor activity that it can partly claim as its own. NAGGW has raised over 48 million seedlings nationally and distributed more than 10.8 million drought-resistant seedlings to farmers across the frontline states. Kano’s share of that federal effort is undoubtedly substantial, but conflating federally funded Great Green Wall outputs with state-level campaign performance inflates the apparent success of the state’s own 10 million pledge.
The Structural Problem: Desertification Does Not Respond to Press Releases
Both states deserve credit for keeping reforestation on the political agenda. In a region where desertification threatens farmland, fuels farmer-herder conflict, and drives displacement, any sustained attention is better than none. Kaduna’s integration of economic trees into its planting mix reflects a sensible understanding that communities will protect what feeds them. Kano’s embrace of digital monitoring, even if results are not yet public, suggests an awareness that paper trees do not stop sandstorms.
Yet the core weakness of both campaigns is the absence of independent, transparent verification. Neither state has published a year-by-year breakdown of seedlings planted, species mix, geographic distribution, or survival rates at 12 and 24 months. Without that data, the 10 million figure functions as a political brand rather than an environmental metric. Nigeria loses an estimated 350,000 hectares of land annually to desertification; trees that die within a season do nothing to reverse that.
As both governors near the end of their terms, the honest assessment is that Kaduna and Kano have built the scaffolding for reforestation—nurseries, partnerships, policy frameworks, and public awareness—but have not yet demonstrated that the scaffolding has produced a forest. The next administration, whichever party wins, should inherit not just a target but a ledger. The public deserves to know how many of those 10 million trees are still alive.