The death of Emir Ado Bayero of Kano in 2014 coincided with a defining moment in Nigeria’s political history, with certain individuals from his domain playing central roles in what eventually culminated into the loss of power by the ruling Peoples Demoratic Party (PDP) to then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general election. Two of these individuals were then Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor and a prominent member of the ruling house of the Kano Emirate,
Lamido Sanusi, and then Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.
After 16 years of dominating political power in a country that did not record much progress in socio-economic and infrastructural development as a result of corruption and financial recklessness of the ruling PDP, disappointed and dissatisfied, the Nigerian people came to regard the party as a symbol of corruption and misrule. By 2014, the Nigerian people had reached a near consensus that endemic corruption was the main cause of Nigeria’s socio-economic and infrastructural dwarfism.
Therefore, when Sanusi, as CBN governor, raised the alarm of unremitted billions of dollars from crude oil sales into the federation account, it resonated with a large section of the Nigerian public, even though his allegations were proved inaccurate by other relevant authorities. The embarrassment caused to the President Goodluck Jonathan administration by Sanusi’s “false” alarm was aggravated by the mismanagement of the situation by a government whose public perception was at its lowest after being rocked by a series of corruption scandals.
The Jonathan administration, apparently believing Sanusi’s false alarm to be a deliberate act of sabotage scripted by the opposition APC to bring down his government through reputational internal haemorrhage on the eve of elections in 2015, launched a counter-offensive against him. The marking of Sanusi as regime enemy and his hounding out of office as CBN governor on a counter-accusation of financial recklessness, coming after he raised concerns about unremitted monies from crude oil sales, boomeranged into a public relations fatality for the Jonathan administration, which the APC exploited to the fullest advantage. Pushed away by the government of the day and pressed towards the then opposition APC, Sanusi, a man whose ultimate desire in life was to be the Emir of Kano just like his grandfather, Muhammadu Sanusi I, emerged the preferred choice of the Kwankwaso-led APC government of Kano State to succeed his recently departed uncle and father in-law, Ado Bayero. In addition to spiting Jonathan, the appointment of Sanusi, a man who was considered an outsider to the royal court of Kano Emirate, as the Emir of Kano over his other rival claimants to the throne, who were better groomed in the etiquette of the conservational traditional leadership institution of northern Nigeria, was borne out of the political expediency of securing Nigeria’s largest voter demography for the APC in the epic battle ahead of the 2015 presidential election.
Whereas the role played by Kwankwaso in the “Change” revolution of 2015 was by design, that of Sanusi was by default. The alarm sounded by Sanusi was not a deliberate act of insider sabotage but an unintended error of arithmetic arising from a genuine concern about the possibilities of unremitted monies from crude oil sales; an act that should not have been met with hostility but appreciation as a precautionary effort in what was supposed to be a collective war on corruption. By mistaking Sanusi as a friend who was an enemy of their enemy, the Kwankwaso-led APC government of Kano State committed the administrative blunder of appointing a man as Emir of Kano who was a social reform advocate and a restless spirit full of intellectual activism, who was not likely to conform with the norms and royal etiquettes expected of the head of a deeply conservative traditional institution. Emirs are to be seen but not heard, as symbols of tradition, and must maintain political neutrality at all times. And when Sanusi, as Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano, began to live up to this reputation as a traditional ruler that would be seen and heard loudly and clearly, his former friends became his enemies. It was not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ Muhammadu Sanusi II, the 14th Emir of Kano, would be dethroned from the throne of the largest and most important emirate of the Sokoto caliphate.
However, the current socio-economic emergency situation of the north of Nigeria makes the royal etiquette of silence no longer a golden virtue but a conspiracy with the region’s corrupt political leadership to condemn the people into perpetual poverty, illiteracy, disease and insecurity. Courtesy of the 84 per cent poverty rate in the Muslim North, Nigeria is today the poverty capital of the world. Plagued by a complex web of complicated security challenges, ranging from Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, cross-border banditry in the North-West and killer herdsmen in the North-Central, Nigeria is now designated the third most terrorised country on earth.
At the root of these socio-economic crises is the low level of education, coupled with a tradition of archaic religious and cultural self-immolation that has reduced the Muslim North to the lowest point of the misery index in the world. To pull the Muslim North from this religious and cultural self-immolation, which has potential for incinerating the entire Nigeria, it requires urgent and thorough systemic reforms. It is these reforms that Emir Sanusi consistently called for by speaking the home truth even at the risk of committing class suicide, because a reformed society would signal the end of feudal privileges that define the current emirate system of traditional rulership.
Emir Sanusi’s call for unreserved embrace of education and the roll-back of the out-of-school children menace through responsible parenting, as well drawing from his experience to offer pragmatic solutions on the economic management of the revenue-challenged states of the Muslim North clearly stood him out as a modern-day reformer that was not a saint. Reformers are not saints and saints are never reformers.
The educational backwardness in the Muslim North has limited its socio-economic advancement, necessitating the obnoxious affirmative action of quota system and federal character that has arrested the collective development and progress of the educationally advanced parts of Nigeria, a situation that Sanusi warned was no longer sustainable, as seen in the sustained clamour for Nigeria’s restructuring.
However, after six years of as an activist Emir, he was cast aside from the throne in a move that followed a predictable pattern. APC’s Governor Umar Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, who was caught on tape pilfering public funds through kickbacks from a government contractor, was sufficiently incensed enough to go after Emir Sanusi for his refusal to support his re-election bid. In a fit of rage like a bull in a china shop, Governor Ganduje, to reduce Emir Sanusi’s influence, splintered the largest and most important emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate into five emirates and in the process brought to an inglorious end an era of royal pride and prestige. Not done yet, Governor Ganduje eventually dethroned Emir Sanusi via executive fiat and banished him from Kano Emirate altogether. The “truth” he spoke against the previous PDP administration that made his dream of emirship come true is the same truth that got him into a nightmarish dethronement.
The tragedy of this inglorious end of an era is that it will be recorded in history that the ancient emirate of Kano was reduce to rubble by the same hand that was caught on tape receiving and stashing dollar denominated bribes into his pockets. And for Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II, Governor Ganduje has secured for him a special place as the last Emir of Kano.