Kano and Rivers States have become the new poster boys for rhetorical violence. Kano always seemed combustible, and has in the past two or three weeks proved its mettle in boisterous politics, but it was Rivers, with its immense talent for both rhetorical excesses and engaging burlesque, that got Nigerians transfixed for the past few months. It is somewhat quiet now on the Rivers front, albeit the quietude of the graveyard, but who knows tomorrow? On its own, after achieving what is probably a contrived judicial stalemate after two heady weeks of monarchical war games, Kano is lapsing into unearthly somnolence. But it won’t be for long. Something or someone will break the logjam, not only in Kano, but also in Rivers. It is the way things work in these parts. Just when they teeter between war and peace, suddenly they regain balance and move on much steadily than anticipated.
Whether for long or merely episodic, what seems to define the politics of Kano and Rivers is their almost total embrace of rhetorical violence. They enjoy it, and are indeed cavorting in it. In Kano, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, a protégé of the founder of the Kwankwasiyya movement and former governor of the state, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, had just railroaded a bill through the House of Assembly two Thursdays ago to repeal the Kano Emirate Council (Repeal) law. That law sacked the five emirates of Bichi, Gaya, Rano, Karaye and Kano created by the previous administration of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. But on that same Thursday, a Kano kingmaker, Aminu Babba Danagundi, who is also the Sarkin Dawaki Babba, brought a motion before the Federal High Court, Kano, headed by Justice Abdullahi Muhammad Liman, to impede the return of dethroned Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II to the unified Kano throne. Since then, injunctions and interim orders from various courts have been flying around in the state.
The multiplicity of injunctions is of course bad enough, causing giddiness among security agencies and the Kano populace, but much worse is the rhetorical violence thundered by interested parties, including, sadly, the state government, and even former vice president Atiku Abubakar. Last week, rather than call for restraint in the tussle for the Kano throne, the former vice president warned that anarchy was imminent and asked Nigerians to hold President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responsible. What about the governor, the state’s lawmakers, acerbic government officials, lawyers, and the emirs themselves? Nonsense, implied Alhaji Atiku; the buck stops at the president’s desk. Mendacity and truth have become hopelessly inextricable, nerves are frayed, and the combatants have dug their heels in. Bilious and trenchant statements by sundry interested parties began flying around warning of anarchy, disorder and doomsday. Nearly everyone wants the president to intervene. How? By sanctioning the courts, stifling the rights of citizens to seek relief in the courts, hamstringing the state government, or issuing diktats to the emirate council?
Some commentators have gone as far as suggesting that because former governor Ganduje was involved in the creation of the five emirates, which Governor Yusuf has now unified into just one Kano Emirate, then President Tinubu must be a party to the dispute, perhaps subtly on the side of the former governor for political and electoral reasons. Other commentators accuse the current governor of preconceived bias in railroading the repeal law on the grounds of his and the Kwankwasiyya movement’s campaign promises. Since the idea of one big Kano Emirate still holds attraction for many Kanawa, it was also suggested that the other side enamoured of the split emirates must be evil. Positions have hardened, and fiery, unforgiving statements are flying round and complicating the tussle for the throne and obfuscating electoral extrapolations. Everyone, left or right of the spectrum, gives the impression that war is imminent. They would in the end be disappointed if war does not break out in line with their wishes nurtured since the end of the last president poll.
The situation in Rivers is more farcical but no less truculent. There the courts are also naturally involved in issuing orders and counter-orders, of course complicating the severe and ongoing political tussle in the state. The Rivers tussle is much simpler, however. Governor Siminalayi Fubara fell out with his benefactor and predecessor, Nyesom Wike. Unlike the Kano Emirate tussle, the Rivers crisis was a hasty and unnecessary struggle for dominance. Wisdom should have dictated a different course of action, but as some commentators in the state observed, Gov Fubara embarked on a rapprochement with some political actors who opposed his election and who fought his predecessor to a standstill. In the eyes of Mr Wike, the peace march was a ploy to hijack the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) structure in the state and turn it over to the ‘enemy’.
Very quickly, the frontline took shape and positions became ossified. A peace deal was struck early in the war of control at the behest of the president, but after some so-called state elders intervened and deconstructed the deal, in almost similar circumstances to the pre-civil war Aburi Accord fiasco, Mr Fubara ‘saw the light’ and became intransigent. The fight began in earnest, State Assembly building was torched and soon demolished, and the suspended and minority lawmakers of four legislators soon became the de facto Assembly appointing speakers, making laws, and vetting commissioners. More, the minority legislators sat in Government House, turning over the control and inspiration of the legislature to the state executive. In days, dithyrambs were composed and all manner of troubadours began writing classical and jazz music, complete with provincial ensembles and orchestras. Unusually fecund for producing musical scores, Rivers State began churning out virtuosi rhetoricians, including the governor himself, who could play with words and phrases as well as energise rhythmic musical expressions. But they soon began speaking violence, warning about the enemies of Mr Fubara plotting to set the state, nay the country, alight should the president fail to intervene and restrain Mr Wike. As recent as last Wednesday, the courts were still belching out injunctions, creating a situation where many wondered whether they would have any left before the year runs out.
