By joshua 
Senator Sunday Steve Karimi: From Promise To Proof – The Updated Score Card Of A Ranking Senator At Work.
By Our Reporter
When Kogi West went to the polls in 2023, they sent an Engineer, a former two-term House of Representatives member, and the first man from Yagba to reach the Senate since 1999. What they got back is a lesson in what ranking status means in the Nigerian Senate. As Chairman, Senate Services Committee, Senator Sunday Steve Karimi is no longer learning the ropes. He is holding the ropes for Kogi West. And the results, verified across all seven Local Government Areas as of September 2026, tell a different story from the usual politics of promises.
On September 18, 2026, the story changed physically in Kogi LGA. The commissioning of the fully remodeled Government Science Secondary School, Koton-Karfe, facilitated through the National Senior Secondary Education Commission at a value put at over N1.2 billion, with some reports valuing the total intervention at N1.5 billion, became the single biggest educational infrastructure ever attracted to Kogi West by a sitting legislator. But Karimi’s education model is two-pronged. While he builds, he pays. In Egbe, his alma mater Titcombe College, he transformed the old library into a modern, solar-powered Computer-Based Test Centre at over N350 million, with 288-seater capacity that hosted over 1,200 JAMB candidates in the last diet. That success has now been scaled. In the 2026 appropriation, he has secured three more 275-capacity CBT Centres complete with 275 laptops, internet, CCTV, solar and standby generators each at Muslim Community Secondary School, Lokogoma in Lokoja LGA, Government Science School, Iyara in Ijumu LGA, and Okutadudu Comprehensive College, Odo-Ere in Yagba West LGA. A fourth centre at ECWA Secondary School, Mopa, is being personally funded by the Senator in partnership with the community.
His bursary scheme has become the largest in the history of Kogi State. 1,000 students from Kogi West received N100,000 each in 2024. In 2025, it was expanded to 3,000 students across Kogi State with N300 million disbursed in January 2026. A fresh N300 million bursary for 3,000 students, 1,390 from Kogi West, 1,000 from Kogi East and 610 from Kogi Central, has been announced with portal opening from August 20 to September 20, 2026. He insists it is personally funded, not constituency project money.
When kidnappers turned the Kogi-Kwara border into a corridor of fear, Senator Karimi did not wait for budget releases. He put N750 million of personal resources on the line and fully built, furnished and equipped a 94-bed military Forward Operating Base in Egbe, Yagba West LGA, complete with accommodation, armory, solar and generator power. He donated two brand new Hilux patrol vans and facilitated deployment of troops to Jege, Odo-Ere, Isanlu and Olle-Bunu. The Chief of Army Staff commissioned it on October 12, 2024 and commended the intervention as timely after the rescue of CUSTECH kidnapped students near Egbe. That intervention earned him national recognition as the Most Security-Conscious Senator in Nigeria.
The Pakuta Bridge linking Aiyegunle Gbede in Ijumu LGA to Kiri Kingdom, Kupa North and South and Eggan in Lokoja LGA with Niger State had collapsed for over 15 years, cutting off trade and creating security vulnerability. Senator Karimi personally funded its reconstruction for N23 million using local labour. On federal roads, he secured N9 billion for the Iluhagba-Mopa-Isanlu-Egbe road, with N3 billion captured in the 2025 budget and additional N6 billion secured from the Minister of Works, with contractor CGC already mobilized to site on the Isanlu-Ejiba axis. For the abandoned Kabba-Egbe-Ilorin road, he attracted about N2 billion for repairs and secured additional N6 billion to return contractor to site 11 years after abandonment.
In Kogi West today, no Ward is left behind. Records show 85 solar-powered boreholes, one per ward, plus facilitation of 75 new ones and rehabilitation of over 60 non-functional water schemes. At his Lokoja Town Hall in August 2026, he announced 22 solar-powered motorized boreholes delivered and five industrial boreholes planned for Lokoja to address water shortage. On power, over 32 transformers distributed, with specific mention of Sarki Noma, Mount Patti, Obajana, Offege-Baptist, and over 500 solar-powered street lights installed across 62 communities. For economic empowerment, 50 women cooperatives received N2 million each, totaling N100 million, after rigorous business training, structured as revolving capital. He also donated N10 million each to Anglican Nursery School, Iyara Day, Ayetoro Day, Ekinrin-Adde Day and released N20 million of a pledged N50 million for Kabba Day celebrations.
Beyond projects, Senator Karimi has reintroduced the Bill for Federal University of Agriculture, Kabba, which has now passed all legislative stages awaiting presidential assent, and has sponsored bills on barring CBN Governor and deputies from partisan politics and motions on road funding and national unity.
A first-term Senator lobbies. A second-term ranking Senator chairs. Returning Senator Karimi in 2027 means Kogi West moves from the queue to the high table, with capacity to attract a Federal University, a Medical University in Egbe, more CBT centres, and principal offices in the Senate. Twelve years after he first entered the House, the verdict from Kabba to Lokoja, from Egbe to Koton-Karfe is consistent: water is flowing, lights are on, children are in school, farmers are crossing bridges, and people sleep with both eyes closed. That is not a promise. That is proof.