He left just the same way he came. In a blaze of controversy. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who became Emir of Kano on June 8, 2014 was deposed on March 9, 2020 barely 6 years on the throne. His enthronement was as controversial as his dethronement. He was never primed to be Emir, his brother was. But somehow, he became the Emir, a position those close to him said he romanticized for a long time.
This article is not to dig into the historical relevance of Emirship. It is to point to the traits that define the man, Sanusi. He is an iconoclast, a stormy petrel whose petit frame contradicts his boisterous and rambunctious disposition. Iconoclasts are gadflies who can hardly be gagged. Perhaps, if being a king, an emir or a trado-religious leader is to remain numbed to your environment including swallowing obvious imperfections, being reticent to manifest failings and weaknesses of your subjects, Sanusi was the wrong choice for an Emir.
His dethronement and banishment are politically-induced. I didn’t need a seer to tell me this. His affinity to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former governor of Kano and political ‘foe’ to Abdullahi Ganduje, incumbent governor is the pesky reason for his fall. Kwankwaso installed Sanusi Emir. He was accused by the Ganduje supporters of backing the opposition PDP in the 2019 election. Sanusi would have been long gone. Ganduje only waited for his victory to be ratified by the Supreme Court before shoving him out of the throne. It’s all vengeful politics. Nothing more. But that’s by the way.
Those who argue that Sanusi was too talkative got it wrong. Sanusi is by nature a gadfly. He is non-conventional. He speaks, talks and would never be silenced. He talks to his own hurt. He speaks the truth even when he indicts himself in the process. His daughter, Shahidat, referenced Sanusi’s favourite quotes to be: “You can suspend a man but you cannot suspend the truth.” Shahidat who also saw the deposition of his father ahead said his father does not mind being the most unpopular Emir for as long as he speaks the truth. So much about Sanusi and the throne that also consumed his grandfather.
Now, let’s look at Sanusi, as the revolutionary, the rebel and iconoclast. He’s an economist, a former banker, the first northerner to rise to the position of Managing Director of First Bank; and later the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). As Governor of CBN, Sanusi the reformer was writ large. He was the whistleblower who summoned the courage to blow the whistle on the rotten underbelly of the banking sector. He told Nigerians that bank CEOs and managers were stealing depositors’ money. He had the gumption and the guts to investigate and prosecute top bankers. He was right. The court of law proved him right. CEOs of some banks were convicted, jailed. Some lost their illicitly acquired assets. He was unpopular among the top bankers for this but he didn’t care. But he was popular among the majority of depositors who had always suspected the lavish lifestyle of those entrusted with their money.
In simple language, Sanusi touched the untouchables. He dared the clan of bank robbers and their cohorts with “vested interest” in the banks. Lest we forget, these are big men and women in Nigeria who flew private jets, bought off estates in Dubai and elsewhere and lived practically in the air with depositors’ money. Any sane Nigerian with a little sense of history would remember the pains inflicted on Nigerian depositors who lost their money when Savannah Bank, Societe Generale Bank and others went underground. At the root of banks’ collapse is corruption usually from the top hierarchy of these banks. The rebel called Sanusi stopped the failed banks syndrome. To strengthen the banks, he supervised another round of banking consolidation through acquisitions and mergers. For his radical anti-corruption reforms the influential The Banker Magazine in 2014 crowned him Central Bank Governor of the Year. His reforms ramped up risk management in banks.
Let’s not also forget that it was Sanusi who blew the whistle on missing billions of dollars ($20 billion) from the coffers of NNPC under President Goodluck Jonathan. By hindsight, Sanusi was right. Billions of dollars, (may not be up to $20 billion, but you never know), were stolen by the minders of the nation’s crude oil purse. On-the-run Diezani Madueke is a living proof. Recoveries made by the Buhari government is another proof.
When some northern elite were silent on the dangers of Boko Haram, Sanusi took the other path. He condemned Boko Haram very loudly. He was unsparing in his words. For this, he attracted the wrath of the sect. Not only was the Great Mosque of Kano bombed, Abubakar Shekau, the unrepentant Boko Haram leader, accused Sanusi of being anti-Islam. Sanusi was the loud voice against some of the ills that tethered the north to the stump of poverty and illiteracy, like child marriage, polygamy especially among the poor, lack of population control. He wanted more schools built not mosques. He desired an end to Almajiri syndrome and he was truculently against breeding of children that parents have no capacity to cater for.
Sanusi is a man with no fears. Under Jonathan Presidency, he exposed the scam called fuel subsidy. He told Nigerians how the nation was paying for bogus ship loads of fuel; ship that never docked on our shores and fuel that never came into the country. He was CBN Governor at that time and he should know. At the end, Sanusi was right. Jonathan superintend a scam-infested fuel subsidy regime. Sanusi’s recommendation was that Nigeria should subsidise production, not consumption.
As Emir, the same Sanusi, a Fulani, did not spare Buhari, a fellow Fulani. He typically blew the whistle on the forex subsidy scam that defines the Buhari Presidency. He said the way some crooked Nigerians made billions out of the fuel subsidy scam is the same way some criminal elements are making billions of naira from Buhari’s dubious forex subsidy regime. “As Emir, all I need to do is sit in my palace and call CBN and I will make my bullions,” he once said.
In his letter to Sanusi after his deposition, Ahmed Joda, a man I hold in very high esteem for his values said it was most likely that Sanusi “cannot change his beliefs in order to survive in an environment that is alien to all that is fair, good and responsible.” This sums up the Sanusi dilemma. He spoke truth to power. He openly criticized the Ganduje government for misplacement of priorities. Sanusi is a privileged child. Born into opulence but he is not happy that illiteracy, backwardness and poverty have their strong roots in the north. And make no mistake about this: Sanusi never counted himself a saint. He was guilty of some of his preaching, but he was never afraid to call wrong by its name. He has become our collective conscience. Every society needs a Sanusi, a man who would look at a king boldly and tell him, he’s not behaving well. Now, Nigeria, not just Kano, Kaduna or the north, would need Sanusi. For him, it’s off limits!