By Aliyu Nuhu
I have read the amended Kano Emirates law, which was brief, concise and straight to the point, to achieve certain ends. It is a promise fulfilled by the new NNPP government. Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso had said time without number that if elected, the government would repeal the Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje-led Emirates laws.
If Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf signs the amendment into law (which is a certainty), it will remove the present emirs from their offices and return all the Ganduje creation of first-class emirs back to district heads (hakimai). The affected emirs are those of Gaya, Rano, Karaye and Bichi.
The new law gives the governor the power to either re-appoint them hakimai or remove them and search for new ones.
Until the coming of this new law, I thought that Muhammadu Sanusi II’s return was impossible, as it had no precedence in the history of the Kano emirate. But after talking to officials and people who know the workings of the government, it appears certain that Sanusi will return to his throne, in fact, soon enough to preside over the coming Eid-Kabir prayer.
Nothing is certain yet, but nothing is impossible, thanks to political intrigues and the need for the new government to reverse Ganduje’s legacies. There is no love lost between Kwankwaso, Abba, and Ganduje.
For my own views, I support the amendment of the Emirates laws and the return of a strong Kano emirate, but I don’t support Sanusi’s return as emir of Kano. The current Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, is doing well and is loved by the people.
I don’t support Sanusi’s return. I know he has not learned a lesson and will still come back and meddle with Kano politics, attack Abba and his government, and continue shooting his mouth as if he is an ordinary person. People who sit on the Kano throne don’t talk too much. He must also not try, like his grandfather did to Sardauna, to outshine the Kano state governor.
In history, there was an incident where the then-Emir Muhammadu Sanusi shamed Sardauna in the Kano race course parade ground by attracting a standing ovation with the Sardauna seated. The premier of Northern Nigeria considered it an affront to himself as the Emir stole the spotlight by arriving in full splendour and pageantry, and the whole assemblage had to stand up for the Emir in traditional homage and honour. It was a percussion to the dethronement of Emir Sanusi of Kano.
The grandson Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has inherited those tendencies from his grandfather, and I daresay when it comes to attacking and criticizing the government, Kwankwaso/Abba don’t have the patience, and if you like to call it table manners of Ganduje. They will throw out Sanusi in a blink of an eye.
They said a leopard never changes its colours. But time will tell.
Until then.