It is a pity that what seems to be a seamless resolution of the royal family dispute in Kano is being blown out of proportion by outsiders who have no jurisdiction whatsoever in a situation that lies in the purview of the Kano State. The constitution gives all states control of traditional institutions in their territories. As far as the constitution is concerned, the federal government’s role in a situation of dispute is the maintenance of law and order.
The situation in Kano has strengthened the argument of the necessity of state police to permit states to enforce their directives and state laws. The deployment of police and other security forces such as the DSS and in extreme situations, the army, when the police cannot cope, belongs in the province of the federal government. We must try and avoid excessive use of force in what appears to be a civil matter. Kano can be combustible at times but at the same time, we must allow civil resolution to play out its own process before resorting to other methods. The situation in Kano must not be allowed to deteriorate to such a level for lives to be lost.
The dramatis personae in the dispute are first or second cousins in the same dynasty. When Sir Muhammadu Sanusi 1 was deposed in 1964, his brother, Ado Bayero the Nigerian ambassador to Senegal was picked by the Sardauna of Sokoto who was then the premier of the North to succeed him and Muhammadu Sanusi was banished to Dutse, then a dusty garage junction on the way to Borno. The place has become an emirate and a state capital today with a faction of the Sanusi family maintaining a hereditary role in the emirate.
Muhammadu Sanusi, the grandfather of Lamido Muhammadu Sanusi did not resist his deposition because he knew it could have been costly to the royalty which he held in high esteem. He went quietly into the darkness of descent from the Olympian height he had enjoyed as a haughty emir of Kano who was primus inter pares among all the emirs of northern Nigeria paying scanty regard to the supreme position of the Sultan of Sokoto, the titular head of what was a caliphate subservient to political overlordship of the premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello who happened to derive most of his power from the electorate of Northern Nigeria but also from being a member of the family of the Sultan.
When Muhammadu Sanusi 11 was deposed by Governor Ganduje about four years or so ago for what was called maladministration and insubordination, he too followed his grandfather’s example and went into exile in a dusty village in Nassarawa State until he was rescued via the court of law after a case was filed by his friends so that he could be granted right of where to live outside Kano. He relocated to Lagos with some of his family and after some time he got his spirit back and began to comment again on strictly economic issues which are his forte. Why can’t Emir Aminu Bayero in the interest of the dynasty go into the night quietly and find a useful thing to do for himself, the emirate of Kano and for the peace of Nigeria? If there is crisis in Kano, he and the Kano people will be the losers and what would he have gained at the end of the day? It is God who elevates and wherever we find ourselves, we should just accept and allow the will of God be done.
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I have abiding interest in Kano for reasons of having many friends from there and particularly for my respect for Ambassador Aminu Sanusi, father of the incumbent emir, who I first met when he was our high Commissioner in Ottawa Canada and I was a graduate student in Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1968. There was this horrible film “Afrika Adio” made by a studio in Italy by the racist propaganda machine of apartheid South Africa to denigrate the whole of Africa as a place of savages. It was a terrible film showing the Tutsi massacre in Rwanda and Burundi by their compatriots the Hutus, the fighting in the Congo accompanied by tribal massacres and the Biafran war and alleged massacres and other brutal fighting compared with the serenity in Portuguese Africa and other settler colonies of Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola and apartheid South Africa. For us Africans who had no voice and who were thousands of miles away from our homes, this was a devastating blow and assault. Some of us surrendered to depression and melancholy. It was in this circumstance that as president of the African students union in my university, I wrote to Ambassador Sanusi telling him our serious situation because our fellow students looked curiously at us asking us questions annoying problems about cannibalism in our various countries. Ambassador Sanusi immediately prevailed on the Canadian government to ban the movie and he travelled to Halifax as a father would do to assure us of what the federal government of Nigeria was doing to prevent an occurrence like the one we suffered from. We remained eternally grateful to him. Ambassador Aminu Sanusi later served in China and other places before becoming permanent secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs during the Muhammad/Obasanjo military regime from where he left suddenly to Kano to become a district head and Ciroman. Unfortunately, he died rather young. On accidental meeting between us around 1982 or 1983, he had asked if I would consider writing a biography of his father, Sir Muhammadu Sanusi after my book on Sir Kashim Ibrahim to which I answered in the affirmative. His death subsequently ended what would have been an interesting academic exercise and contribution to Nigerian history. I state all this just to say I have had an abiding interest in the role of personalities in history and studying the role of important personages in our history would no doubt enrich our understanding of the past and the present of Nigeria.
Back to the Kano emirate situation. There is nothing new under the sun, King Solomon wrote, and the deposition of Emir Aminu Bayero would not be the last in Nigeria as long as the constitution permits it unless the traditional rulers are constitutionally insulated from the overlordship of elected rulers. Before him the Alaafin of Oyo was deposed in 1954 by the Obafemi Awolowo government, the Olowo of Owo, Sir Olateru Olagbegi was removed in 1966 by the Brigadier Adeyinka Adebayo government of Western Nigeria; during the Abacha regime, the Sokoto State government removed Ibrahim Dasuki as Sultan of Sokoto. Going forward, traditional rulers should only be marginally involved in politics in theory and in practice. Those who want to eat with the devil must use a long spoon.
Now that we are revising the constitution, there is a need to protect traditional rulers by having an appropriate constitutional provision for it. If we cannot respect them, we should abolish the institution like India did. But since Nigerians want their preservation, we must preserve them in truth and indeed. When politicians are in trouble at least in the local areas of the country where respect for traditional rulers is the highest, they rush to them for advice and support but as soon as they settle down and stabilise their regimes, the traditional rulers become dispensable.
It is in the interest of the traditional rulers not to play into the hands of political rulers who enjoy using them. Traditional rulers should come together at least the important ones among them to constitutionally protect the institutions from political manipulation, use and misuse. This is the only way to avoid the recurring decimal of political leaders kicking traditional rulers around just to score points in their political competition. Before constitutional changes, traditional rulers should occupy their royal positions and keep silent no matter how much they want to correct the errors of politicians or else they will become victims of the vagaries of political development.
