The Metrics and the Muscle of Hadiza Bala Usman

In Abuja, the most quietly powerful person in a room is usually the one with the spreadsheet. For Hadiza Bala Usman, the spreadsheet is her mandate.

Usman serves as Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy and Coordination. She heads the Central Delivery Coordination Unit, the office tasked with measuring ministerial performance. In January 2026, her 50th birthday was marked not just with a celebration, but with a high-level government colloquium.

Her role grants her a unique purview. She establishes the key performance indicators for federal ministers. Her reports can recommend cabinet reshuffles, a fact that underpins her unofficial title: the “headmistress of the Presidency.”

Vice President Kashim Shettima led the tributes at her birthday event. He praised her “grace and grit,” by word for the quiet authority she wields. Her influence, he noted, is built on structure and results, not noise.

This current authority is shadowed by a very public past. Her tenure as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) ended in a controversial suspension in 2021. She detailed the experience in a memoir pointedly titled ‘Stepping on Toes,’ which ignited ongoing disputes with major business interests.

Usman’s public life has a consistent throughline: a focus on institutional accountability. It connects her early activism as a #BringBackOurGirls co-founder to her current role enforcing policy coherence across government.

Observers note a certain resonance in her journey. The daughter of a radical historian, she now operates at the heart of state power, using data as her tool for reform. It is a blend of inherited principles and applied rigour.

For the ministers she evaluates, Usman represents a new calculus in Nigerian governance. Performance is no longer just about political loyalty; it is increasingly about deliverables tracked on a dashboard she helps design.

Whereas the system is usually criticised for opacity, Usman’s power lies in her insistence on measurable light. The most influential woman in the administration may be the one who ensures everyone else’s work is no longer done in the dark.