Dr. Hauwa Nuru, Honourable Commissioner for Finance of Kwara State, has made a commanding mark at the 6th Africa Finance Festival (AFF) 2026, delivering a keynote address to Africa’s most senior finance leaders and receiving the prestigious Public Sector Fiscal Performance Leader of the Year award at the festival.
The festival, organised by InstinctWave Group and powered by TheCFO Magazine and InstinctBusiness Magazine, took place on 12 and 13 May 2026 at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, under the theme “Future Forward: Building Resilient, Sustainable and Digital Finance Systems for Africa.” Now in its sixth edition, AFF has established itself as the continent’s definitive annual gathering for public and private sector finance leadership.
Dr. Nuru was among a select keynote faculty that opened the festival’s substantive programme, joined by Daniel Asiedu, Managing Director of OmniBSIC Bank Ghana; Ashish Khemka, Director of Finance and Operations at Lagos Free Zone; and Bonaventure Okhaimo, Managing Director and CEO of the National Credit Guarantee Company Limited.
Her presence on that platform was deliberate; AFF has made sub-national fiscal governance a growing and distinctive strand of its continental conversation, recognising that the future of Africa’s public finance is shaped not only at the federal level but in the states and regions where infrastructure deficits, revenue gaps, and governance reforms are most immediately felt.
Addressing an audience of CFOs, accountants-general, tax directors, treasury leaders, risk practitioners, and institutional investors, Dr. Nuru anchored her keynote on the fiscal and governance priorities that define Kwara State’s development agenda.
She said:”It is at this level that infrastructure deficits are most valuable to enhance con-connectivity and economic activities. Education approach, what are these approaches? Strengthening fiscal discipline and-transparency.”
She highlighted the critical importance of growing internally generated revenue as a strategic imperative for states seeking to reduce dependence on federal allocations, and underscored the role of structured collaboration with development partners and the private sector as essential levers for sustainable infrastructure financing.
She further said :”Typically, investors and development partners are attracted to system in infrastructural delivery. Also, access significant opportunity for concessional financing.”
“Improving internally generated, generated revenue is also a key. We need to make sure we work on this to develop it, um, further and improve upon it.” the commissioner said.
Her address offered a candid and policy-grounded account of what sub-national governance reform demands in practice — not as an abstract aspiration, but as a working programme with measurable targets and real accountability structures.
The festival formally recognised Dr. Nuru’s impact with the Public Sector Fiscal Performance Leader of the Year award The award acknowledged her sustained work in strengthening the state’s revenue systems, advancing budgetary transparency, and positioning Kwara as a credible partner for investors and development finance institutions.
The 6th Africa Finance Festival marked the most substantive and wide-ranging edition in the event’s six-year history, assembling public sector officials, corporate finance leaders, tax executives, treasury professionals, risk practitioners, and blockchain innovators from across the continent under one roof and confirming once again that the conversation about Africa’s financial future is being led by the men and women willing to stand and speak with authority in rooms that matter.
