After the long wait of more than two months, President Muhammadu Buhari finally announced the names of a 43-member cabinet. Even though the president had promised that he was going to choose those whom he personally knows, there is no evidence that he knows most of the people he has chosen. This is not an indictment by any means. A cursory look at the list makes me feel he did not dig enough to unearth many hidden gems in human resources of Nigeria. We seem to be confused about what system of government we are really running. Is it presidential or cabinet/prime ministerial government? From the way we operate in Nigeria, we seem to be running a hodgepodge system neither “rat nor bird” as we say in this part of Africa. If we were running a truly presidential system, the president should have gone beyond just naming only politicians into his government and found very knowledgeable people who can help him translate his wishes of development into actual reality.  He has completely ignored the academics, professionals and the youth and non-political types. He could also have brought into his government some of those young people who ran for the presidency in the last election like the Fela Durotoyes and Moghalus, who in my opinion represent the yearning of our country’s youth and knowledgeable people. By not recognizing them, he is alienating the critical mass of the intelligentsia; the same group who represent the future of our country .Choosing politicians alone is a total misunderstanding of the presidential system of government.

The Abacha constitution we are running the country with, states that each state must be represented in the federal cabinet. This requirement of course is understandable in a plural society like Nigeria but do we have to go beyond having more than 36 ministers which is the number of states we have? As far as I know, there is no state House of Assembly that has more than 43 members which is the number of the Muhammadu Buhari cabinet. How does one run a 43-man cabinet? Is it by voting? This is an anomaly. Even a cabinet of 36 ministers would be unwieldy. The present cabinet to me looks like another parliament or a talking shop where not much will be achieved if everything had to be subjected to normal cabinet discussion and scrutiny which underpin the idea of “collective responsibility” In the case of this huge cabinet, the president will have to have a cabinet within a cabinet more like a “war cabinet” in an emergency situation. Nigeria of course is in emergency. What with a stagnant economy that is not expanding to cope with the employment needs of a growing youthful population. We are also beset by enormous security problems as well as ethnic antagonism largely the result of political manipulation and the inability or refusal of the security forces to cope with the security needs of a bedraggled and helpless people. If the country by the nature of this huge cabinet has to be run by a war cabinet which is really not a bad idea, the war cabinet must be made up of intelligent people cutting across the ethnic, religious and regional divide of this country. This can be done since we now generally agree on the six zonal divide in the country. If however the war cabinet or “cabal” seems to come only from the president’s part of the country, then the hue and cry will begin all over again thus immobilizing the country . What President Buhari should try and do is to bring up constitutional proposals along with the need to prune down the size of government. This will also involve the idea of a unicameral parliament and doing away with present wasteful and expensive senate while radically reducing the number of the House of Representatives while cutting down by half the wasteful do-nothing 774 local governments. As far as I’m concerned, the present states should be the unit of effective administration in a much decentralized government with power and financial resources transferred from the centre to the periphery where the people live. This will not only reduce tension in the land, it will also enhance security because the states and the much stronger local governments will be able to design appropriate security architecture as desired and determined by the peculiarities of each state and local governments away from the current lumbering homogeneity and the inefficiency of the present.

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The president does not have all the time in the world to make these changes and to write his name into our nation’s history. These are not normal times, in fact these are unusual and abnormal times in our country and these things call for extraordinary efforts and vision. The president because of this present situation may have to use executive powers to make necessary changes. It is a case of the end determining the means. A situation in which after four years the country has not been able to increase exponentially electricity generation and distribution calls for a change of direction if not personnel. Within the same period, Egypt with less resources than Nigeria increased its power generation by 11,000 megawatts while our installed capacity hovers around 5,000 megawatts in the so-called biggest economy in Africa. Imagine how big this economy would be if we were able to generate enough electricity to power the economy! For how long are we going to wait? Some of us have spent all our lives for ever waiting for the day when like any normal country, we will have regular supply of electricity and other normal infrastructure characteristic of a developed country. The only way to get to our development destination is through enlightened and effective government and this will not be achieved nor attained through an oversized cabinet whether at the centre or at the states’ level of governance

The great achievement made by the Obafemi Awolowo government  in the old Western Region which some of us experienced which covered the present states of Ogun, Osun ,Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo, Delta parts of Lagos and Bayelsa was accomplished by a cabinet of about 11 ministers . The Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa federal government between 1957 and 1966 was made up of less than 25 ministers. Where we got this federal character mammoth of a cabinet government goes back to the Obasanjo federal character regime which meant well but the Abacha constitution which ignored the fact that many of the 1979 states had been subdivided into small units embraced without modification. This has made the whole thing counterproductive and rather unwieldy and unmanageable .This has become a cog in the wheel of development and efficiency. If we don’t know where we are going, we should at least know where we are coming from. When you add the innumerable numbers of special advisers, special assistants and assistants at presidential, ministerial, parliamentary and state governors and commissioners level, the level of over administration becomes intolerable and uneconomic. We should at least embrace what worked in the past instead of going on like a beheaded chicken with the present situation.

I have always wondered when our governments at all levels will begin to cut down on cost of administration before it is too late. We have a mono-cultural economy that depends on hydrocarbons export of crude oil and liquefied gas which are not infinite. Not only that, with the revolution in energy resources away from global warming climate changing sources and increasingly towards renewables like sun, wind, tide thermal and at worst nuclear energy, it is only a matter of time that our overdependence on hydrocarbon exports will become economically suicidal to put it mildly. We should imagine the scenario where we have nothing to sell to the rest of the world and no money to maintain the replete of our administrative, political and infrastructural architecture.  If we have insecurity now, by then we would have reverted to a state of nature where life is nasty brutish and short. In other words, it is high time we made hay while the sun still shines. Other countries are preparing for the coming Industrial Age of artificial intelligence and robotics while all we seem to be doing is sharing political offices and crude oil commissions of unearned income .We should be investing in what will replace the present economy by funding innovation and setting up industries directly related to adding values to our agricultural produce where we at least have comparable advantage vis a vis the rest of the world.

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Domestic and foreign policies are intertwined to the extent that it will be appropriate to say that one is an extension of the other. A country with a sound and thriving economy with strong defence forces and a contented people will definitely have a strong foreign policy. Its voice will be heard when it matters. Other countries for the purpose of trade and mutual support, would like to befriend that country. Such a country needs not be totally self-sufficient, in fact no country is; but a beggarly country totally dependent on external support will only be useful when its vote is sought in the voting that takes place in many fora of foreign policy operation. Such a country will have little leverage abroad and amongst its neighbours. This has ramifying effect on international relations and the way its citizens are treated abroad and in the case of foreign missions operations in the country with its nationals fleeced when they apply for visas after going through humiliating experiences.

It will be interesting comparing the way nationals of five countries namely India, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Nigeria are treated in the issuance of visas by members of the OECD countries. Singaporeans generally do not need visas to go to any of the western countries. So also are Malaysians exempted from the rigors of visa application? Chinese these days are courted and pampered at the entry borders when large numbers of students are arriving to study in foreign countries. India even though a putative power and Nigeria would be lumped together for special and humiliating treatment as countries whose people don’t return home after visiting the advanced western countries.

Although the condescending treatment of Nigerians is rooted in racism, but in actual fact it is a case of our country not having power which translates into influence abroad. For now the same scenario can be painted in the case of India which is a rising power based on its 1.3 billion people and its technological know-how and its being a nuclear weapons state. As a young man, I saw the way Japanese got accepted in white countries. Now Chinese are not only accepted but  are feared and  I can  foresee Indians by their dint of hard work, at least by that critical  mass of Indian scientists becoming accepted  in the future into the world of respected races. But what about Africans? It is my hope that we will work our ways out of the humiliating situation the world has cast us, a humiliation rooted in slavery and colonialism.

Nigeria as the most populous Black Country must lead the way. But does Nigeria see this as its manifest destiny? This is why the Buhari government must rise above its ethnic and regional tendencies and assume a crusading mission to put Africa on the map of global power. This is why it is very critical that Nigeria solve its internal problems of ethnic favouritism and preferences, insecurity, underdevelopment arising largely from corruption, putting the wrong people in critical offices of the nation, obscurantist religious politics in a modern age, indolence and over-bureaucratization, duplication of offices and agencies and miniaturization and atomization of units of state and political administration. As it is now, our country cannot fight a successful war if attacked because of the potential fifth columnists among us who are disgruntled because of their feeling of not belonging and abandonment of government responsibility to them as citizens. All these are what make it impossible for Nigeria to punch at its proper weight in the comity of nations.

So what is to be done?

The question to ask is what were we doing right when we had leverage in the continent of Africa and the world at large and we are no longer doing now? From 1960 to 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa under a majoritarian non racial democratic government, Nigeria was the uncrowned leader of Africa. Indeed the great man Mandela publicly stated this by saying Nigeria was the obvious choice to take Africa’s position on a restructured United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This was because of our role in the liberation of Southern Africa from Angola to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa itself. We committed substantial national resources and even made our workers to participate financially in the funding of liberation of Southern Africa. Our leaders particularly Generals Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida demonstrated leadership in foreign affairs. By the 1970s, our country was contributing troops to United Nations peace keeping and peace enforcement operations not only in Africa but even in the Middle East and the Balkans in South East Europe. Even though by the 1980s and 1990s the euphoria of having too much petrol dollars had died a natural death, this did not lead to our withdrawal to our shell. Of course the situation has admittedly changed. What has huddled and humbled us is the security collapse internally.

The foundation of virile and strong nation with a strong voice internationally must be laid at home and the contentment of our people is the most important bedrock of this foundation. I say this for emphasis. President Muhammadu Buhari must therefore find solutions to the fissiparous tendencies aching the nation.

Some are calling for restructuring and devolution of power. This should be a win-win situation because nobody is benefiting from the present situation of state paralysis and a situation in which constituent states of the federation cannot pay the minimum wage of N30,000 a month to workers. States cannot construct and maintain roads; neither can they dominate their environment. This was what led to total collapse of Zamfara. There are too many ungoverned spaces which terrorists simply moved in to occupy. I personally believe there are too many states in the country. What was the purpose of severing from Sokoto and Kebbi the state of Zamfara in the first instance? All the billions of naira given to the state that did not have the capacity to administer it were simply stolen by its absentee executives living it up in Kaduna, Abuja and Dubai. What I am suggesting therefore is that Buhari in the interest of the survival of our country must support genuine efforts at restructuring and devolution of power and resources from the centre to the periphery. Our country through this measure will kill two birds with one stone. It will put resources in the hands of the state to secure their environment and secondly it will ensure states have resources to carry out physical development.

Abuja is too far from the states and bureaucrats in Abuja do not understand the unique problems of each state. Once the support of the citizens have been secured, the federal government can then focus on winning the war against insurgents in the northeast and in the rest of the country. The personnel of the armed forces and the police would have to be considerably expanded and help from friendly countries must be sought to train and equip them for the work at hand and for the guerrilla warfare rather than the conventional warfare our military were trained to engage in.

Since a sound economy is the bedrock of stable politics at home and politics among nations, the Buhari government must continue its policy of diversification away from oil and gas into agriculture and industrialization. In this regard, emphasis must be placed on adding value to our agricultural produce before export. All our moribund textile mills must be rehabilitated and put back to work. All the refineries and petrochemical industries must be sold of, if necessary, at give-away prices to the companies that built them to avoid repeating what happened in the electricity sector where power generating and distribution companies were sold to party hacks who do not have the foggiest knowledge about power. A policy of food sufficiency must be our policy so that we eat only what we produce. In fact this policy will reduce our health problems arising from junk food and artificially modified food products.

Once we secure the home base then we can go on an activist foreign policy in the interest first of ourselves and secondly in the interest of our sub region and Africa as a whole. Nigeria must be the centre of our foreign policy from now on.

I was Nigeria’s Ambassador in Germany when the June 12, 1993 election took place. As would have been expected, my staff and I watched the results with anxiety and bated breath, afraid that something may go wrong, because we believed that the military under President Ibrahim Babangida was genuinely interested in peaceful transfer of power to an elected government after a tortuous transition that seemed to have no end. President Babangida had also made highly successful state or official visits to Great Britain, France and Germany during which the president made solemn pledges that he was committed to peaceful transfer of power after a long period of military rule interspersed with short civilian interludes since 1966. It was our duty as ambassadors to continue to reassure our European trading and economic partners that Nigeria was committed to democracy. Wherever Nigeria goes, so goes Africa was the feeling in those days when Nigeria had serious and solid leverage in Africa unlike nowadays when we seem to have muffled voice in the affairs of not only our sub region but of Africa as a whole. The Boko Haram tragedy and the campaign of destabilization mounted on the country by terrorists of different types, be they herders, kidnappers, cattle rustlers and brigands of every hue and colour have huddled us.

When the results of the 1993 presidential elections filtered in, we were surprised about what then seemed to be the triumph of nationalism over the divisions of religion, region and ethnicity. Abiola and Baba Kingibe his running mate were Muslims and Christians, even though not comfortable with Christians being excluded, still went ahead and voted for the ticket. Not only did Abiola win in the Southwest but also in the North and also in the South-south. He also defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofar in Kano and in his ward. Abiola was a phenomenon who appeared to have prepared well for a day like we all witnessed during the election. For years he had used his vast wealth to build mosques and churches for communities all over Nigeria that asked for his favour. He had also established local vernacular newspapers in the north, southwest and the southeast and given employment and scholarships to thousands of Nigerians from all over the country. His promise that he would make Nigeria rich also resonated with many people especially when he told the rags-to-riches story of his life. He also touched many Nigerians by championing the cause of sports in Africa. He was also financing the movement for a demand of reparations from the West for slavery and colonialism. In this regard, he was also financing the US Congressional Black Caucus in its activities as a pressure group in the United States. These twin concerns of his may have sealed his fate in the West which must have considered it dangerous for an African with the kind of resources Abiola had to also lead the most important black nation in the world and also having tentacles in the United States and the vast Islamic world.

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I remember him at a time phoning me in Germany asking me to put together whatever information that I had on the episode of Yemen sinking the boats of Somali immigrants fleeing across the Red Sea to the Arabian Peninsula. He said he was going to personally take up the issues with the king of Saudi Arabia on the obligations of all Muslims to one another.

Abiola also once called me to collect from Daimler Benz the cost of an armoured Mercedes 500. He said he wanted to give it to General Obasanjo. He said Obasanjo was waylaid on Oyo-Ilorin road in a Peugeot by robbers and he said how disgraceful it would have been if he had been killed in such a flimsy car. I sent the invoice as requested. This is the kind of large heart Abiola had. His generosity was legendary. It is a pity that when it was time for people to reciprocate his kind and generous gestures they let him down. When he won the election Obasanjo was one of those who undermined him by saying he was not the “Messiah Nigeria was waiting for”.  When the National Assembly unanimously voted to name the National Stadium in Abuja after him for his contribution to sports in Africa, Obasanjo did not carry out the wishes of the National Assembly. Both Babangida and Abacha had benefited from Abiola in their professional progress and in other ways during the Second Republic. Abiola probably got too close to the military since the days of General Murtala Muhammad as Army Director of Signals. He was like riding the back of the tiger and eventually finding himself inside it.

When the results of the election became obvious to Babangida, he found himself threatened by his colleagues in the top hierarchy of the army who were hostile to an Abiola succession. Colonel David Mark allegedly threatened to shoot Babangida unless he cancelled the result of the election. Spurious reasons such as the government owing Abiola’s companies were alluded to and that Abiola’s government would be put in an invidious situation of paying Abiola’s companies. Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki was said to have supported Abiola’s succession to the post of president after winning fair and square an election adjudged to be the best organized in the history of the country.

In order to nullify the election the North-South dichotomy in the politics of Nigeria came in handy. The visceral hatred of the Igbo political leadership for the Yoruba was exploited. This involved getting Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu to say he was not in politics because of Abiola. Even before the election, Arthur Nzeribe had formed what he called Association for Better Nigeria ( ABN ) which took the government to court over the election and got a midnight judgement by one hapless  lady, Justice  Bassey Ikpeme, to suspend the transition programme. If Babangida had stood his ground, the politics of the country may have changed forever. At least we would not have been visited by the financial fiend that Abacha turned out to be. His looted monies hidden all over the world are still being discovered in several offshore islands and small principalities and major countries and financial centres all over the world. Most of these monies will be lost for ever and the ones being discovered are not easily surrendered by countries keeping stolen money.

To cut a long story short, Babangida surrendered power to Abacha who was first hiding behind the camouflage of an Interim National Government headed by Ernest Sonekan while Abacha was conveniently left behind purportedly to stiffen the back of the Sonekan regime. All the other military men in Babangida’s government were retired. But in actual fact, it was a premeditated plan to wait and temporise a little while the electoral rumpus died down before Abacha the “Khalifa” moved in. Abiola himself was naive enough to think that Abacha would hold power for a while before surrendering it to him. He therefore seemed to have supported some of his supporters like Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Dr Onagoruwa and Ebenezer Babatope who found himself serving in the Abacha government with Dr Ofonagoro with whom he had exchanged threats on national television when both were on different sides in the 1979 elections. The leader of Abiola’s party, Tony Anenih and Abiola’s running mate, Babaagba Kingibe were also in the government. It turned out Abacha had no plan to hand over power to anybody and certainly not to Abiola. After holding on to power from 1993 to 1998 during which time he robbed the country blind, he set in motion the process of transferring power to himself as a civilian. He formed five parties which Chief Bola Ige described as “five fingers on a leprous hand”.  He was promptly nominated by all the five parties as their presidential candidate. Chief Ebenezer Babatope was scheduled to move a motion pledging the support of all Yoruba people for Abacha even though he was killing many of them in politics and those of them who had retired from the military. Sadly, the Clinton administration in the USA gave Abacha the nod that if he changed from his uniform to Babanriga, America would have no problem with him. By this time Nigeria had been kicked out of the Commonwealth particularly after the hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa, the activist Ogoni politician and environmentalist. Other civilized organisations like the Organisation of African Union also ostracized Nigeria.

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I write as a professional historian and a concerned Nigerian who would like to see our civilization preserved for  the present and the future.  I am also the Baapitan of Oyo and therefore interested in the preservation and sustenance of our traditional institutions. Kano as a kingdom has existed at least for over a thousand years ruled first by the Habe (Hausa) and for the past two centuries by the Fulani.  Fighting under the flag of revolt raised against the Habe rulers  by Usman Dan Fodio allegedly for their unIslamic practices, Kano was conquered in 1807 and the first Fulani ruler was Sulaimanu, one of the lieutenants of Usman Dan Fodio.  Sulaimanu’s successor was Emir Ibrahim Dabo who founded the current dynasty in Kano. By the 14th century, Kano was so important  as a centre of commerce and trade in the Central Sudan (i.e land of the blacks ) that it attracted Dyula/Mandingo Wangarawa  traders from Mali who came in large numbers to the city. The city state became an Islamic state with the conversion of its ruler,  Yaji Dan Tsamiya (1344- 1385) and was attracting Islamic scholars from other parts of West Africa including the celebrated Abdurrahman Zaite, a Wangara from Mali but more important was  Muhammad al-Maghili(1440-1505), a berber scholar  from Tlemcen in North Africa who visited Kano and lived there for a while in the 15th century and wrote a book  for the emir on the “Obligations of Princes”, a book that has been compared to the much more famous “The Prince “ written in 1532 hundreds of years later by that Italian diplomat, politician, philosopher, historian, humanist, writer, playwright and poet, Niccolo Machiavelli.

When the British conquered  northern Nigeria at the turn of the 19th century and throughout the imposition of the British imperium, Kano was the most important emirate in northern Nigeria. During the governor-generalship of Sir Fredrick Lugard, Kano was considered so important that the emir earned more salary than the governor -general. When Nigeria was amalgamated in 1914, the emir of Kano, Sarkin Abbas and Alaafin Gbadegesin Ladigbolu of Oyo represented native opinion and interest in the Nigerian Council, a talking shop created by Lugard to hide his untrammeled power as a British Poobah in Nigeria.

Traditional institutions in Nigeria fared better under British colonial rule than they did when politicians emerged in the political space of Nigeria.The first assault on the institution was struck in Oyo when Alaafin Adeyemi  II,  the father of the present Alaafin of Oyo, Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III, was deposed in 1955 by the Action Group government of Chief Obafemi Awolowo following a clash  in 1954 between  the elected local government chairman of Oyo, Chief Bode Thomas who was the deputy leader of the Action Group, central minister and chairman of Oyo Local Government  Council. Heavens did not fall as was expected and the soft underbelly of traditional institutions was exposed. In 1963, Muhammadu Sanusi I, the grandfather of the current Emir Muhammadu Sanusi 11 was removed from office by the government of Sir Ahmadu Bello, a scion of the Sokoto Caliphate, over trumped  up charges of maladministration of the emirate. Muhammadu Sanusi had been emir from 1954 to 1963 and he was a very powerful emir and an Islamic scholar and a supporter of the  Tijanniyya tariqa,  a modernizing and egalitarian Sufi order headquartered in Senegal. Sir Muhammadu Sanusi’s imperious ways did not quite go down well with Sir Ahmadu Bello who felt as a prince of Sokoto and head of government, he deserved unalloyed loyalty from Sarkin Kano who also did not defer to anybody. When Sanusi was removed, one or two emirs came after him before the situation was stabilized when  Ado Bayero, a son of a previous emir, Abdullahi Bayero and a nephew of Sanusi was recalled as Nigeria’s ambassador in Senegal and crowned the emir of Kano. The children of Muhammadu Sanusi who were well educated found their ways into diplomacy with three of them at different times rising to the position of ambassador and representing the country in such places like Canada, China, Malaysia, Indonesia  Sudan and possibly Saudi Arabia. Alhaji Aminu Sanusi, the father of the current emir after representing Nigeria in Canada and China among other places  became Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He retired suddenly over policy and protocol disagreements with late Major General Shehu Yar’ Adua  and returned to Kano as Ciroman  Kano ( heir apparent).

I first met Alhaji  Aminu Sanusi In 1968 when I was a post-graduate student in Canada and he was High Commissioner Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Nigeria in Ottawa. This was during the Nigeria-Biafra civil war when most of us Nigerians were going through the trauma of seeing our country torn apart and brothers  were killing brothers with indescribable civilian suffering and kwashiorkor pandemic in the war affected areas. As if this was not enough to upset  us, a South African  sponsored Italian film with the title “Africa adios” was being shown all over Canada as the most authentic film from Africa. The film showed the contrast between  peaceful Southern Africa under white settlers rule  while wars were  being waged in the Congo, Nigeria, Burundi and Rwanda thus implying that Africans were better off under white racist rule. This was at a time when Africa was struggling to consolidate its independence.  I wrote to all ambassadors of African countries in Ottawa  to express our unhappiness at the directive of the African Students Association of which I was Secretary General. It was only Ambassador Aminu who flew to Halifax Nova  where the film was being shown and saw to its withdrawal from Canadian screens. Needless to say we were all very grateful to him. Many years later, I met him when he was a private man and having read my yeoman effort to rescue Sir Kashim Ibrahim  from obscurity by writing his biography he asked me if I would want to write his father’s biography. I said I would be too glad to do this if he could guarantee me access to  archival and private sources in Kano.  I had written Chief SL Akintola’s biography and I wanted to write the biographies of Obafemi Awolowo and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as well. I only succeeded in writing those of Chief Samuel Festus Okotie-Eboh, Soun Ajagungbade 111, Augustus Bandele Oyediran and my autobiography before I moved on to other intellectual pursuits. Unfortunately Ambassador Aminu Sanusi died rather prematurely.

The current Emir Muhammadu Sanusi, the erudite and accomplished son of Ambassador Aminu Sanusi who rose to the  position of governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria  became emir of Kano after the death of his uncle Ado Bayero. While he was  governor of the CBN, he was not afraid, following the old tradition of good central bankers  of holding contrary opinions to that of the government that appointed them. It was in this circumstance that President Ebele Jonathan sacked him when he complained that crude oil sale proceeds were not  being credited to the CBN and that $20 billion were unaccounted for. Perhaps the figure he mentioned may have been exaggerated but the revelations of sleaze and corruption in recent times have proved him right that something untoward was happening in government.

Muhammadu Sanusi represents the coming of highly educated persons into traditional governance in Nigeria particularly in northern Nigeria. Beginning with Asaba in Delta State where a professor of medicine has been its ruler for decades and now spreading all over the country, where we now have  as rulers retired generals, high ranking police officers, retired permanent secretaries, ambassadors,  top civil servants, successful business men and academics, it is inevitable that there is bound to be a clash between the traditional and modern rulers and unless disagreements are rationally and reasonably managed, there is the possibility of break down of law and order. In the 1980s, this kind of scenario led to much violence in Kano leading to  many fatalities  including that of a distinguished colleague who was special adviser to our friend Alhaji Muhammadu Rimi who was then the Governor of Kano.

Obviously the present governor of Kano and perhaps most of the governors  in the North are not  too happy with the criticism of their misrule by Emir Sanusi and even by the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, the latter being more diplomatic than the straight-shooting Muhammadu Sanusi. The point is that truth is bitter but somebody must be able to speak truth to power before we are all swept off by the rebellion of the talakawa protesting against grinding poverty and poor governance. The collapse of state institutions in Zamfara is a graphic case of the kind poor governance complained by the emir. Signs of people’s impatience are already manifesting in the herders, kidnappers and cattle rustlers disturbing the peace not only of northern Nigeria but of Nigeria as a whole where the rich can no longer sleep because the poor are awake because of hunger. This is not the time to pick a fight with a traditional ruler who  commands a lot of respect and large followership because of his position as an arbiter in  inter and intra communal disputes and his reputation as an Islamic scholar.

Cutting the Kano emirate into five is totally uncalled for. We must never destroy the legacy of the past because Africa is a continent struggling to establish  and reassert a legacy comparable to those in other parts of the world on which a confident present and future can be built. Governors would come and go; so also will mortal man come and go. The emirate will remain after we would all have gone. The governor of Kano should restore Kano emirate to what it was and how he met it. If the emir must suffer, the emirate does not deserve dismemberment and liquidation. Political power must not be used to commit acts of illegality and everyone including the emir of Kano should be allowed the freedom of expression.