Sanusi’s odyssey
When he came tumbling
down last week, the path of former Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano away from
royal pinnacle was no less turbulent than the path of his ascendance to that
peak. He came down in a hail of controversy just as he had gone up in the heat
of controversy.
Recall that just before
he became emir in 2014, the ace economist and banker was controversially
removed as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor by former Goodluck Jonathan
administration, manifestly on account of his needling exposé about underpayment
of some $20billion into the national treasury arising from fraud in government
funding of fuel importation subsidies, illicit transfer of state oil assets
into private hands and other losses associated with mismanagement at the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over a 19-month period.
It was in its pushback
that then Jonathan presidency incredibly accused him of “financial
recklessness” and “far-reaching irregularities” in his stewardship at the apex
bank since 2009. The administration suspended him few months ahead of
constitutional expiration of his five-year tenure as CBN helmsman, and he was
yet at judicial war with that government when he was chosen as Kano emir in June
2014.
Six years on, Sanusi has
for some while been locked in existential battle with Kano State Governor
Abdullahi Ganduje for his royal throne. He lost out early last week with his
dethronement and banishment by the Ganduje administration. For Sanusi’s
deposition as the 14th Kano emir, the state government alleged
insubordination on his part and disrespect for lawful instructions by the
governor. It expectedly had statutory provisions to cite as façade for the
obvious act of personal vindictiveness, namely Section 13 of the Kano State
Emirate law 2019. But the animosity between the two personages had been in
public domain and for long threatened to overboil. Only there were celebrated
truce mediations by eminent Nigerians, which we now know beyond doubt fell
utterly flat.
Resulting from the
estrangement between Governor Ganduje and Sanusi II, there were frantic
sub-plots of efforts to diminish the royal. Among these were the governor’s
fracturing of the historical Kano emirate into five, just so to whittle
Sanusi’s sphere of authority; the state anti-graft agency’s insistence on
probing the former emir for alleged N3.4billion fraud despite being restrained
from doing so by a court of law; and only penultimate week, the state house of
assembly’s institution of a probe linked to purported public petitions accusing
the former emir of ‘unethical conducts that contradicted the culture and
tradition of Kano people’ – whatever that means! Assembly members were yet
squared up in fisticuffs as they processed what to do with the purported
petitions early last week when the Kano State Executive Council met and
summarily resolved to remove and banish the emir.
As top banker and later
as royal father, Sanusi wore his mind on his sleeves and is reputed for strong
convictions with brutal candour. It, however, seems the case it wasn’t just the
Kano governor he crossed with those convictions but the whole northern
establishment. In his passionate candour, the former emir tore into historical
beliefs and practices that were considered sacred articles of northern
heritage. Recently, he spoke against the patronage and merit-blind convention
of quota system. He berated the northern leadership elite for poor human
development indices relative to other geopolitical regions of the country –
among them, pervasive indifference to low level interest in education, about 87
percent of the Nigerian poor being in the North, prevalent child marriage and
female gender oppression, and the phenomenon of out-of-school street children
known as the almajiri who he wanted rehabilitated.
Even if there had been
some doubt, it is glaring now that the exploits of Sanusi II neither sat well
with the northern elite nor fitted cultural designs of northern royalty. And
this was to the extent that when he was booted off the throne early last week
by Governor Ganduje, there was not a voice raised by the northern establishment
in his support. One exception perhaps is Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai –
and that, obviously out of personal friendship and like-mindedness with the
dethroned emir. Remember it was at el-Rufai’s 60th birthday
celebration that the royal had unleashed one of his strongest takedowns of the
northern narrative. Within 48 hours of Sanusi’s dethronement, the Kaduna governor
saddled him with two political appointments: one as deputy chair of the board
of Kaduna State Investment Promotion Authority and another as chancellor of the
Kaduna State University.
‘The exploits of Sanusi II neither sat well with the
northern elite nor fitted cultural designs of northern royalty’
But el-Rufai is a lone
and feeble striker against a full squad of bullish defenders. Even if Sanusi II
was disposed to immediately get cracking on those new assignments, he was
effectively incapacitated because he had been banished and placed on abusive lockdown
of house arrest – not in Kaduna State where he was keenly sought after, but in
a remote community of Nasarawa State where the people neither really wanted him
nor knew what to do with him having been foisted on them.
President Muhammadu
Buhari has publicly washed his hands off the Sanusi saga, but he could say it
to the birds. There is no doubt, of course, that it isn’t within his statutory
remit to order dethronement of an emir, and that he “does not have a history of
intervening in the affairs of any state in the country unless the issue at hand
is of national consequence.” But you do not as a state governor kick out an
emir of Sanusi’s caliber without getting firm buy-in of the country’s leader.
And why not in this case, anyway? President Buhari is a full-blooded product
and beneficiary of the very regimen that Sanusi had been tearing at. Besides,
both Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule and new Kano Emir Aminu Ado Bayero
have gone calling on the president at Aso Villa for debriefing following
Sanusi’s dethronement and banishment.
Sanusi II is one of the
North’s – indeed Nigeria’s – brightest stars, added to his privileged
background that saw him passing through among the best educational institutions
available anywhere. As such, he must have been fully in the know what comes
with the territory of his royal activism. That perhaps informed his equanimity
when he described his removal from the Kano throne as destined by Allah and a
thing of pride that he ended up as his grandfather, 11th Emir of
Kano Muhammadu Sanusi I, who was deposed by First Republic Northern Region
Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello. “We have accepted whatever Allah decides. We have
agreed. We appreciate (God). We are happy and we know it is what is best for
us,” the junior Sanusi added in a four-minute video that was made public after
his banishment.
Under the existing
framework of law, it is battle fishing to challenge the power of Ganduje to
dethrone the monarch. But the forced domiciliation of Sanusi at a location not
of his choice, and denial of his freedom of movement and voluntary
associations, among other liberties, is a vicious overreach. Sanusi has himself
resorted to the judiciary on this particular score, and he secured some
reprieve last Friday with the court ordering his immediate release. Now that he
is free, he is likely to settle for unconventional locations – including relocating
abroad – for his future base. The damage he has potential to do to his
detractors, foot lose, is only better imagined. Still, no matter where
President Buhari stood on the deposition, he has a window of opportunity to
arbitrate and thereby redeem his own image, besides saving Nigeria the negative
image posed before the world by the abuse of the former emir’s rights.
One last thing: it is
highly doubtful that the vocal royal will be permanently silenced by his
deposition. But even if he is, his voice is a genie already out of the bottle.
It will haunt the Nigerian nationhood until the values he preached take root.
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