The Emir Sanusi affair as repeat of 19th century history

I had my first impression of royal etiquettes in my native town of Okene, Kogi state, in north-central Nigeria, from my immediate family. Growing up within the precincts of my sprawling ancestral compound, I watched my grandfather, who was the Sarkin Makera (Ohinoyi Aninyere) of Ebiraland, carrying out his daily activities with poise, elegance and silent dignity. He rarely spoke in public and when compelled, he spoke mostly in prayers. The people of Okene, alongside Bida and Ilorin, are some of the most assimilated into the Muslim Hausa-Fulani hegemony among the peoples of north-central Nigeria. As you move up north, royalty increases in splendour and grandeur, with very high prestige. So sacrosanct is the virtue of silence that traditional rulers appear in public dressed in full-faced turban with the symbolic mouth covering. Their facial expression betrays no emotion and body language gives no indication of any biased sentiments. This is so because traditional rulers play a critical stabilising role in a society that is steeped in traditional Islamic values existing within a larger geographical space that is a modern, ethno-religiously diverse constitutional democracy, in order to contain any form of conflict between faith and citizenship. It was against the norm for a traditional ruler to make open critical comments on governance and economic policies without quietly exploring available channels of communication. 

Therefore, when the very exalted throne of the emirate of Kano became vacant and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Dan Majen Kano, buoyed by his surging popularity at the time because of his confrontation with former President Goodluck Jonathan, emerged a frontline candidate to succeed Ado Bayero, I had serious reservations about his suitability for a role in a deeply conservative establishment. Against all odds, Sanusi’s eventually emerged as Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II, ahead of his rival claimants to the throne, was a politically correct move to spite former President Jonathan with whom there was no love lost.

Apparently, those who supported Sanusi’s emergence as Emir of Kano viewed his confrontation with the Jonathan administration through the narrow prism of the partisan politics and ethno-geographic sentiments. They probably thought Sanusi’s activism as CBN governor to be part of a larger script by Jonathan’s opponents to discredit the administration from within. However, beyond Sanusi’s fallout with Jonathan was a man not acting a script with a predetermined political outcome but a restless spirit with the burning fire and unbridled zeal for reforms and reformation of reforms, a classic case of an extreme non-conformist. Obviously, many people that supported Sanusi’s emergence as Emir did so on the notion that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Unbeknownst to them, Sanusi was not Jonathan’s enemy, he was just being true to his character as a non-conformist. Sanusi’s preoccupation with purveying uncomfortable truth to power was consistent with his restless spirit of intellectual activism.

However, realising the magnitude of the problem confronting the conservative Muslim North, my reservations about Sarkin Kano  Muhammadu  Sanusi II has given way to a cautious optimism about the possibility of the much-needed reforms driven effectively from the inside of the powerful traditional leadership establishment. With the level of backwardness and underdevelopment of the North, silence among the ruling class is no longer a virtue but a conspiracy against the progress and development of the land and peoples of the region. The stability hitherto ensured by the traditional ruling establishment has degenerated to a dangerous form of complacency that has aided a poor political leadership class whose retrogressive governance style has reduced the Muslim North of Nigeria to the poorest and most underdeveloped part of the world. The tragedy of the North’s underdevelopment is rooted in a unique form of Muslim religious beliefs and practices that foster a dependency mentality, combined with an unwillingness to embrace education that has created millions of out-of-school children and out-of-work adults who are now destitute and desperately poor. The consequence of low level of education in the Muslim North has been the twin problems of Almajirinci and Boko Haram insurgency.

For his consistent insistence on social reforms, unreserved embrace of education for enlightenment, Emir Sanusi has gone from being applauded for calling out the Jonathan administration for corruption to condemnation for criticising the northern ethno-religious leadership establishment and their political collaborators on matters of underdevelopment of the North. He is now being accused of not practicing what he preaches as revealed by the probe into his flamboyant lifestyle at the expense of the emirate council funds. Some have accused him of putting his own people down by his uncharitable remarks about the state of affairs in the Muslim North.

To good students of history, this is a repeat of the events of 1963 that led to the dethroning and banishment of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi over allegations of financial impropriety in his management of the Kano Native Authority’s treasury. However, for excellent students of history, this is a repeat of 19th Century events leading to the overthrow of the Habe rulers of the original Hausa city states of Gobir, Kano, Zaria, Katsina, Biram (Hadejia) and Rano, leaving Daura as the only surviving Hausa ruling dynasty, by Fulani Muslim warriors acting under the inspiration of the scholar-warrior and mystic Sheikh Uthman Ibn Fodio. By the beginning of the jihad in 1804, the once prosperous Hausa city states of Western Sudan were in decline much like the succeeding Fulani emirates of modern northern Nigeria. At the core of the decline were issues of social injustice, oppression and unwillingness to educate the populace, particularly women, because an educated people cannot be oppressed. The Habe rulers obscured the ideals of pure Islam with incorporated traditional practices that made the religion a useful instrument of oppression by suppression rather than liberation and freedom. Uthman Dan Fodio, like one of his current successors, Emir Sanusi, spoke out loudly against the establishment and admonished the rulers of Hausaland then to follow the path of positive reforms. Both men were labelled anarchists and accused of upsetting social order. Uthman Dan Fodio and those who heeded his call were persecuted by the state and many went with the sheikh on forced exile to Gudu in present-day Niger Republic. Unlike the emir, the sheikh was an outsider to the establishment and could only actualise his reform agenda by an overthrow of a violently hostile traditional leadership structure that was impervious to change. Today, there is an opportunity for a peaceful, orderly reform of an establishment that is perhaps more decadent than the overthrown Habe ruling dynasties. Like the sheikh, the emir is simply calling on the establishment to voluntary reform in order to realize the full socio-economic potential that northern Nigeria is naturally blessed with.

Many of those criticising the emir don’t realise the cold fact that the North has no choice but to reform rapidly. Unlike the ancient Hausa city states that were independent and shared no pain or gain with each other, Muslim northern Nigeria is today structured into a federation of diverse ethno-religious and geo-political superstructure. For how long will the rest of the nation continue to bear the burden of the disastrous consequences of the wrong choices, flawed and archaic religious beliefs and practices that have limited the development of northern Nigeria and arrested the collective development of the rest of Nigeria through quota system and federal character? If Emir Sanusi is removed from his position on the basis of his intellectual activism for social reforms, the signals would be very clear to the rest of Nigeria that the Muslim North is not ready to move along with other federating units on the path of progress and prosperity.

Inevitably, the rest of Nigeria will reassess their current engagements with the Muslim North and most certainly seek a change to the existing rules of engagement through physical restructuring.