#FindingHawwah

A national search for the best of us to join politics.

Nigeria does not lack people who can govern. It loses them to every field except this one. So we went looking, by name, for the ones already doing the work.

Hawwah Gambo, the subject of the #FindingHawwah campaign

Hawwah Gambo

Hawwah spent over a decade as a broadcaster and columnist, contested the 2023 House race as the best-performing ADC candidate in Kaduna, and founded an initiative against gender-based violence in Northern Nigeria.

We found

Hawwah Gambo.

Now we are looking for the next one.

Why Hawwah

This is the record politics keeps overlooking.

Not a title, not a following. A long, unglamorous record of doing right by people who could not repay it. That is the qualification we are searching for.

01

She told the stories, then ran

A decade in media, then standing for office herself, is stepping from the report into the arena.

02

She outperformed her party

Best-performing ADC candidate in the state is real electoral strength, not just a run.

03

She organises in the North

Founding a GBV and women's-participation initiative is building where it is hardest.

The school behind the search

This is who came looking.

The School of Politics, Policy & Governance grew out of Dr Oby Ezekwesili's #FixPolitics movement. The idea was blunt: stop hoping good people drift into politics, and start preparing them for it on purpose. The people it trains are the doctors, lawyers, teachers and organisers the rest of public life keeps for itself.

Across the continent

The same search, right across Africa.

This is not only a Nigerian story. SPPG already runs in Senegal and Kenya, Ghana is next, and the plan reaches towards twenty countries in time. Wherever you are reading this, there is likely a class within reach.

An SPPG graduating class in Nigeria

Nigeria

976 graduates · 2021–2025

An SPPG graduating class in Senegal

Senegal

47 graduates · Class of 2025, Dakar

An SPPG graduating class in Kenya

Kenya

55 graduates · Class of 2026, Nairobi

Founders Scholarship

Half the tuition. Ten places. One deadline.

If this search found you, we are not going to let cost be the reason you stay out of politics.

50%Off tuition for the next class
10Places at this rate
Applications close
How it is awarded: the Founders Scholarship is owed to anyone who applies through this page. The link below is Hawwah Gambo's, so arriving through it is what puts your application against the #FindingHawwah places. Applying anywhere else is still welcome, but it is scored as a general application.

Run to Win. Govern Good.

Ten places at half tuition, closing 31 August 2026. The class starts with people who were already serving before anyone was watching.

Apply for the Founders Scholarship

Know someone

Do you know someone like them? Nominate them.

The search does not only run on applications. If someone comes to mind before you have finished reading this, tell us about them.

Nominate someone →

The programme

What you would actually be joining.

A 10-month Certificate in Public Leadership and Policy: seven themes, 26 modules and a community capstone, taught by practitioners and academics.