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Desmond Mgboh, Kano
Dr Junaidu Mohammed is renowned for his strong opinions on issues. During the reign of His Highness, Mohammad Sanusi II, it was well known that he was never his admirer.
In this interview, he advanced reasons the deposed Emir should never have been appointed or made the Emir of Kano, as well as spoke on the implications of his deposition on the traditional institution in Northern Nigeria. Excerpts:
May we know your perspective on the deposition of the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II by the Ganduje administration?
I think it is inevitable. It was an accident waiting to happen. And if the truth be told, he should never have been made the Emir of Kano. Never! The Emir of Kano is the preeminent and most prestigious traditional authority, not only in Northern Nigeria, but also within the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. And if you are going to bestow such enormous powers on an individual, you do an honest cost-benefit analysis, you run a proper background check and make sure that the kind of person you are appointing would be a person who will be acceptable, medium and long-term, to the people of the society because Obasanjo used to say to me when were together, you need Kano and Lagos in order to govern Nigeria successfully. And what is happening in Kano, what has been happening in Nigeria before now, the circumstances surrounding this character as the Emir of Kano has proven Obasanjo absolutely right. He was speaking from the benefit of history. First and foremost, the only reason he (Sanusi) is the darling of the Lagos press is because as they say he is “articulate,” some say he is “radical” whatever that means. He is this and he is that. But the question is if you bring a radical to lead a traditional society like Kano, clearly that is incompatible. Clearly that person would be taking one direction while the society he is leading is driving in a different direction. That is a basic problem. Secondly, in himself, he spent most of his life outside Kano. His father was an ambassador, now late and a good friend of mine. But even with his father, he never stayed long enough. He stayed with his uncle and sometimes with Alhaji Inuwa Wada, who was a friend of his grandfather. That was it. Now, if you want to be relevant in a society, you must associate yourself with them and you must know their dos and don’ts. This boy, most of the time, he did not know the dos and don’ts and the little he knew, he just thought, he could simply ignore it, throw it away. Now, it has turned out to be catastrophic.
Thirdly, people who talk too much have to be very careful about what they say because nobody would like to be held responsible for making reckless statements that could actually bring about a fray in any society, because no amount of noise making is worth a human life and he has been making enough reckless statements to cost his life and to cost several other people their lives. Kano people don’t take this lightly. If it comes to fighting for an issue, there is no problem that Kano man would not stand up and fight, but he would fight for something that is worthy of fighting. And on the issue of the Emirate system itself, Kano State had in the past fought a civil war. They call Yakin Basasa. So, you can see they take their traditional institution very seriously. You cannot say this people don’t know what they are talking about. They know what they are talking about. They want an Emir that understands with them, not one that jumps ahead of them. I must add this point too. Kano man believes that he has a unique position in the North. He believes he can lead in terms of the intellectual life, he believes that he can lead the region in terms of the political life and they believe that they are the beacon of Northern Nigerian politics. And whether you like Kano people or you don’t like, you have to concede that to them. And they have paid for it, especially under his grandfather, many people were killed because they demanded the creation of the very Kano State, the very Kano State we are now talking about. When it was the whole of Jigawa State plus Kano State was the old Kano Province and the Emir of Kano was then the preeminent emir and the most prestigious traditional leader. Nominally, it is under the Sultan of Sokoto, even under the Emir of Gwandu, but the Emir of Kano has always been and would remain the most prestigious traditional institution in the whole of Northern Nigeria. What happened is that, if one can recap the story, it’s that this boy was born in Kano, yes his grandfather was an emir. But his father was in the foreign service. His father joined the foreign service the same day with Philip Asiodu. And then, of course, he has been moving from one place to another. I knew the father because the grandfather was particularly very influential in an Islamic order called the Tijjaniayya Movement and, in fact, when he was dethroned as Emir, the then leader of the Tijjaniayya Movement made him his Caliph. Beside that, when the opportunity arose, to pick another emir after the deposition, the father could not be considered because the faults of the grand father had tarnished the chances of the father. Secondly, the father has his own reputation especially regarding women and a decadent lifestyle, but was otherwise a harmless person. That was why the throne passed him and was given to Ado Bayero who was the younger brother of the grandfather. Ado Bayero was a very peaceful man. You would never hear him quarreling with somebody about their women, about their farmlands, about their houses or even their traditional titles. Every single traditional house in Kano, and there are several, could run into nearly 100, that was in existence in 1963 when Ado Bayero was appointed as the Emir of Kano is still in existence today. It is the product of that house that is still in charge. And that endeared him to Kano people. In the past the emirate system used to be a court, you didn’t have to go to Alkali court, they sit in judgment of people on criminal and civil matters, but Ado Bayero refused to be involved. He was never involved in that kind of recklessness.
You have been an apostle of the truth. Could you please make an assessment of the process that was exercised by the government in deposing the Emir? Was it fair enough to all?
Before you do that, with due respect, you have to assess how he came into the throne. He came into the throne by means other than fair or honest! He was not appointed on merit. He was appointed because he made promises to the political forces of those days. And he also offered his service to go and campaign down South, especially in Lagos. I have heard it on good authority that he went and campaigned for one the presidential aspirants of their party. He went Bola Tinubu, he went to Akiolu, the Oba of Lagos, and he went to other eminent persons he knew for the number of years he spent in Lagos. So, if you now come and make false and tendentious promises to people and also promised them money because you are the Governor of the Central Bank, the opportunities to abuse office for personal gain is galore, literary the money that is being printed is printed in your name and the foreign exchanges we earned, you were the chief accountant and treasurer of the government and all the resources that came to it. So, as far as I am concerned, in the first place, he should never have appointed, because his intemperate language, his reckless statements, his lack of morals were there for all to see. All those who knew him cannot defend him on that. There have instances of unprintable things. This is not what a Northern conservative society takes likely. But if people for their own personal and political ambitions decided that they would ignore that, ignore the wishes of the vast majority of the people, including the kingmakers, and decide to appoint him, make him the Emir, fine. Other people who are more blessed with common sense and senses of latitude and who believe that power comes from God and it is God that takes it away would have settled down and said well whatever I did in the past, now is the time for me to settle down. Now, he decided that he is the agent and an ambassador of Lagos radicals in Kano. And that he can open his month and abuse people. Every time he made a statement he abused Northern elite. At the end of the day, only Northern elite could have saved him. But having abused them, he found out lately that they were not going to be of service to him, that they were not going to save the Emirship for him.
I will take you back to the last question sir. I want you to speak of the process of taking him down by Ganduje. Irrespective of how he came to the throne, was the process and methods of his coming down fair enough?
It was fair enough. In fact, if you ask people who know Ganduje, people who know the inner workings of Kano government, I am not a member of the government, they would tell you that Ganduje had been under enormous pressure to get rid of him and do so quickly. The problem with his removal was that he is such a shameless lair. He goes around telling people that…, he meets you and he would tell you that he was being persecuted because he likes you. When he goes to the next person he tells him another story. That he was involved in partisan politics is something that cannot be contested. You have been in Kano for decades. Are you going to tell me that it is a lie that he did not participate in politics? He did. He was openly campaigning for some people against some people, bringing out money and giving people and when the thing was known and backfired, he decided that his strong point was to go and apologise, citing passages from the Holy book: “Eeh if somebody offends you and says he is sorry, you are supposed to forgive the person bla, bla, bla….” This is absolute nonsense! If you go out of your way to offend people you must be psychologically prepared for whatever comes your way. And when you are forgiven for your own transgression, it is assumed that one you will take note and that you make sure that you don’t commit the same offence again. But if he does something today, you ask him please don’t do it again, these are the consequences, he would say “okay I’m very sorry” and he would even bend down to say I am sorry. Next week, he goes and do the same thing or even say worse things. Who is he? Is he above the law? He is not. The secret of the success of this institution is that it is loved and respected by the people. You cannot have a man who is hated, against whom there had been demonstrations…. And when you say controversy, this man has been controversial. First he was expelled from the first school he was sent to attend, St. Ann, Kaduna and later he was transferred to Capital school. When he went to Kings College, it was the same problem galore. After he left and started work, it was the same problem. He has never worked peacefully anywhere. When Kwankwaso was the governor, he was AGM in a bank and was writing articles, abusing the Kano State government and abusing Kwankwaso’s government. They complained. Kwankwaso did not tell me this, it was Abba Kyari who was then the Deputy Chairman of the UBA, Lagos. He was deputy to Bello Osagie. Kano State was not amused by what he was doing because he was making political statements against them while at the same time his bank had about 17 accounts with the UBA. There was then a move to remove him, Kyari, the current Chief of Staff to Buhari protected him. It was Kyari who told me the story. He said he has decided to keep the boy there and I said well I hope you don’t regret it.
This morning former Governor Kwankwaso accused President Buhari of being behind the deposition of Muhammad Sanusi. What is your view on this?
First, I have my own issues with Buhari, I have my own issue with his party and the presidency. If you say Buhari knew about it, it is within the realm of possibility. He might have known about it. After all, Buhari is the president and he is also the Chief Security Officer of the country and Kano is so important for anybody to ignore, especially when it is in turmoil. Secondly, this boy has gone out of his way to be abusive to Buhari and to take partisan position on everything that the government did. That should have been left to the opposition party. It was not his business to go and attack Buhari on every turn of the road. I can do it and I did it and I will still do it simply because I am not a member of any political party and I have a voice. But his voice must be moderated and controlled, given the fact that he is the Emir of Kano and a leader of the community. I am nobody’s leader and, in fact, my family can decide that I am not even their leader in this house. So, we have to be very careful in blaming Buhari for whatever had happened. I don’t believe that Buhari is the kind of person that would say okay go and remove an emir. And besides if he says go and remove an emir and Ganduje refuses what would happen? Is he going to declare a state of emergency?
Going back to how he fell, the lack of due process, some Kano people say this might have implications for our democracy?
My friend, it has no implication for our democracy whatsoever. After all the way he was appointed was also not respectful of the due process either. He was supposed to be arrested. They hid him in Government House and then later, they hid him and took him to the palace and announce him as the Emir of Kano. So, what are you talking about?
How much of this is related to the politics of 2023?
Let me be honest with you. This boy has never been in a position to influence the election of even one ward. The palace used to be part of my constituency – Kano North West. And I have a feel of the pause of the place. This thing started before 2019. How many of us would be alive in 2023. Secondly, you can say this, the weakness and the irresponsibility of the APC as a party contribute largely to the situation whereby we now have nothing but politics to show for it. Because my understanding of politics is that if you have won an election, you now have a mandate that lasts until the prescribed time situated in the constitution and in the electoral law. You cannot simply start campaigning even before you have done 10 per cent on your mandate. But then in Nigeria, every thing is possible and nobody tells people that please let’s concentrate on the job at hand and when 2022 comes, we can then start playing politics. But even if it were for 2023, the question is, is he a candidate for 2023? No! The man he likes or hates, Buhari; would Buhari be in an electoral contest in 2023, no! Unless he wants to set the country on fire. Ganduje himself would not be available for election as the governor of Kano State come 2023 elections. What are we talking about? We should not be looking for demons in a state where they don’t exist; we should not be looking for interpretations, which are utterly illogical. If he wants to contest, I had said so several times, he should have the courage to resign the emirship, stop getting involved in politics and go and contest elections. He can contest in Lagos or among the media people, those of you who like him and make him the president. We have seen sponsored articles that said that he should come and contest for president and I would welcome that… because I will go back into full time politics and campaign against him. I will say a lot of things which he did not know. A lot of things I have been saying it was later he got to know that the things were from his own father.
With what has happened in Kano, it has shown that the traditional emirate councils are not more than a ministry under whoever is the governor of a state at every given time.
In fact, it is not up to a ministry. You are being too charitable. They are the employees of the local government. Go and read the Constitution properly, they are the employees of the local government. From the Dasuki’s panel report, they are employees, not employees of the state government, they are the employees of the local government. And that has been my argument.
Would you recommend that the deposed Emir Sanusi should be unbanished and allowed to just go home?
I do not want to comment on that because his lawyers said that they are already in court.
