A sartorial transformation, nay, revolution, is sweeping quietly through the palaces of the emirs and senior royals in northern Nigeria, leading them to dump the bulky, unadventurous outfits of their prime residents in the mouldy archives of the Caliphate and replacing them with smartly-tailored outfits carved from digital-age fabrics, the various pieces from the turban to the cape, rendered in sensuous hues.
And their staff of authority is no longer a nondescript bauble.
Call it the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi Effect, or the SLS Effect.
For it was the former Emir of Kano who started it all. Now, I must be careful here not to land in the lexical quandary that has ensnared everyone who has attempted to define the current status of the man who, before his royal ascension, used to be the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and didn’t even make any fuss about his pedigree until the day he showed up at work decked out in the resplendent attire of a Crown Prince.
It is not at first blush clear what his quarrel is with the term “former emir.” The ordinary meaning is clear. It designates a person who was an emir but is no longer one, and it makes no reference to the manner of the transition, unlike “deposed emir,” a term I gather he finds not just insulting but cruel.
Nevertheless, Sanusi has with characteristic hauteur berated those who referred to him as a former emir of Kano, insisting that there is no such creature. One top bureaucrat in Kaduna who introduced him at a public ceremony with that forbidden title found himself reduced to a former Secretary to the State Government by the time it was over, just as Sanusi had hinted.
But he may well have a point. How can you be “former” and “emir” in one and the same breath? How can you be “deposed” and “emir” at once? You are either an emir or you are not, and there is no station in between, according to a source said to be close to Sanusi. He has made peace with that circumstance, the source said, but wonders why misguided sympathisers and ignorant detractors alike keep rubbing it in.
After all, he is still very much a royal personage, only on a different, perhaps larger and richer canvas: His Royal Highness Sanusi Lamido Sanusi – or is it Muhammad Sanusi II – is the Spiritual Leader or Khalifa of the Tijaniyya Movement, comprising more than 50 million adherents in Nigeria and the neighbouring countries. Whatever he may have lost in temporal power he has more than recouped in spiritual power and influence.
To return to the sartorial revolution that is the substance of this fragment, and of which SLS must be judged the architect and exemplar: You will find intimations of his tasteful style stamped all over the royal attire of the northern royals, particularly the younger ones, and especially the emirs spawned by the balkanization of the old Kano Emirate in the wake of his defenestration.
Even His Eminence Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, has had to add a dash of colour to the all-white apparel he has donned for decades. Expect more colour from there, and an infusion of the same in the former outposts of the Caliphate, not forgetting Borno-Kanem. And expect the lesser royals across the Sahel to cotton on to SLS’s sartorial revolution.
At this transitional stage, the tailoring isn’t quite as fastidious as that of SLS. A slap-dash approach rather than a well-calibrated colour scheme is what is out there right now. But there is no mistaking its direction. It is in the SLS Style. Just give it time.
Each time he steps out in his royal ensemble, Sanusi cuts a dashing, sprightly figure. In a way, he has retained the soul, the essence of the traditional form even as he has taken the stuffiness out of it and made the person under its folds seem more approachable and accessible, less forbidding. You cannot accuse him of dandifying the court wardrobe.
Plus, he cradles his staff of office not as a bauble but as part and parcel of his persona. This adds glamour and mystique to his appearance. It all seems like a performative act.
In full flight, SLS comes across as a philosopher-king who can with the greatest confidence and elocution and the least preparation talk intelligibly on any subject, sacred or secular.
Few can successfully replicate this aspect of his multi-faceted profile. But a great many, I confidently predict, will adopt his sartorial assemblage enthusiastically and take it to that level where it will be granted a world-class designer label, to which SLS must be accorded the first propriety claim.
Now to matters culinary. The central character is so unlikely a personality that nothing less than that age-worn cliché will do as a preface: Wonders will never cease.
It is Nyesom Wike: the hard-charging, irascible, combustible, show-them-pepper Wike; showboat, Minister for Abuja Federal Capital Territory, and most recently executive governor of Rivers State; Wike figuring in none of the many guises and disguises we have encountered him.
One hugely discredited former holder of that post, Jerry Useni, styled or allowed himself to be styled Abuja Czar or Emperor or whatever and used it to pursue an acquisition binge with few parallels even by our delusional standards. When a public servant marks his 19th wedding anniversary or his wife’s 27th birthday with an Arabian Night-style celebration, you are entitled to whatever conclusions you draw about the source of his wealth.
Wike is too self-regarding to indulge in that kind of thing.
At any rate, there he was the other day, Holy Molly, in the capacious and smartly equipped kitchen of his Abuja residence, taking personal charge in preparing some broth on the stove. The way he held and wielded the mixing spoon, you could tell that this was no amateur or dilettante.
An audience of the day’s men and yesterday’s men watched in awe and cheered him on as he added ingredient after exotic ingredient, seasoned the broth, and stirred it at precise intervals to ensure that it came out in the right consistency.
The mouth-watering aroma hit you as if propelled through ethereal space by some cosmic force. The resident chef in a 5-Star Michelin-class restaurant could not have hoped for a greater effect.
One of the guests was caught eyeing the slabs of cured beef – or was it bush meat – laid out in a tantalizing array on a tray and salivating uncontrollably. Another was heard asking when the Wike Show would end and the real thing would start. Unfortunately, the organizers did not allow viewers to witness that part of the telecast.
Justice Eberechi Suzette Wike is lucky. She can take all the time in the world to craft recondite judgments from the High Court of Justice, Port Harcourt, without having to worry about the culinary quality of her husband’s meals. He can look after himself. According to a source who should know, Justice Wike is the greatest admirer of his culinary prowess.
As Minister for Abuja FCT, Wike can be expected to carry over from his former domain his practice of non-stop launching and commissioning a blizzard of construction projects with song and music and dance and great merriment.
But I will not be surprised if he invites the residents to Eagle Square one of these days to come savour his gourmet cooking. It will not compensate for their loss of status as super-citizens vested with exclusive power to determine who becomes or can become President of Nigeria.
But it will be the next best thing to a restitution.
