By Is’haq Modibbo Kawu
Last Friday, Alhaji Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano, died at the age of 83. He had reigned for 51 years, and with his death, a most significant chapter in the history of leadership, sourced from the traditions of the Sokoto Jihad, closed. Ado Bayero served with tremendous grandeur and because he was a modernizing emir as much as a man of tradition, he provided a remarkable bridge of comforting leadership in a period of often, very turbulent changes. He sustained the myth of the royal institution by the force of his personality, which seemed so unflappable in different circumstances of existence; as well as showing fidelity to the traditions which made the stool of emir one of the most enduring institutions of leadership in West Africa. The fact that he reigned for over half a century, made him the constant in a society of fast-paced transitions of leadership types, and the dislocations associated with the bumpy phases of modern Nigerian history. Ado Bayero built friendships spanning the length and breadth of Nigeria, thatmade him the quintessential bridge providing accesses of reconciliation, when the fault lines of Nigeria threaten to tear the country apart.
While Ado Bayero has been sincerely mourned by his people in Kano and by others all over Nigeria, the fact of existence, is that a new emir had to be named as soon as possible, since the institution, just like nature, abhors a vacuum. By Sunday afternoon, Malam Sanusi Lamido, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, was announced as the new Emir of Kano. Sanusi Lamido is the prince who never hid the fact that what he coveted above any other position, was to be named the Emir of Kano. In a most mischievous turn of events, the ruling PDP had rushed an announcement, congratulating a different candidate as emir, with a not-too-subtle intention to force the issue; but as it turned out, it was Sanusi Lamido Sanusi that was named as new Emir of Kano. His emergence placed in bold relief the high wire political agenda that must have triggered the congratulatory announcement in the first place. The struggle for who emerged as Kano’s new emir became caught up in the vortex of Nigeria’s politics, as the PDP locked horns with the APC to cream the political advantages of the Kano tussle. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s emergence represents a kick in the teeth for Nigeria’s presidency, because of the controversy which led Goodluck Jonathan to terminate Sanusi’s tenure at the CBN, a few months before it was actually, officially to end. Sanusi was clearly the last person that President Jonathan would have wanted to occupy that most prestigious throne, on the eve of the 2015 election.
And if anyone thought that the bitterness did not run deep, the way that each of the two political camps has responded to the events of the past week, gives an indication of the political content of the unfolding events and they are also portents of the bitterness that will clearly condition the politics of the 2015 elections. Desperation seems to be the motif of the next couple of months in our country: desperation to retain or win power by all means. Afterall as TS Elliot reminded in MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL, “the strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice. They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it”! This is what is playing out in our country. The man that presents a meek-as-a-lamb mien is showing that he can bite! Not only were private planes banned from landing in Kano, even the Emir’s palace was firmly kept under lock and key, while reports also emerged that an effort wasmade to arrest the new Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in his personal residence. Those remarkably bizzare steps give an indication of presidential bitterness, which were clearly in response to the openly provocative efforts made by such chieftains of the APC like Bola Tinubu and Bukola Saraki, to influence the choice of Kano’s new emir. They made it too obvious that they were interested parties in Kano to mobilize for Sanusi’s emergence.
But beyond the political controversy, I feel extremely delighted that Sanusi finally emerged as the Emir. Apart from the fact that he coveted the position and was eminently qualified for it, I think he is the type of Emir that will be in tune with the needs of contemporary kingship in Kano and Northern Nigeria. Even his most unrelenting critics agree that Sanusi is an incredibly intelligent individual who gives his all to everything that he lays hands on. Sanusi’s critics cannot stand his guts and bravery and they probably also loathe his excessive self-assuredness, which many of them have wrongfully described as ‘arrogance’. But those are the essential ingredients of the complex persona that define the man. Sanusi will be a modernizing emir without forgetting the roots of the institution that he leads. He will grow into his role as emir and will be the poster boy of the creative blend of the traditional and the modern. What I cannot talk about with any amount of confidence is how he will be able to refrain from commenting on the most contemporary challenges of the day. He had been a public intellectual with an impressive range of writings devoted to detailed analyses of some of the most important issues in the world of the past couple of decades. He balanced his passionate devotion to scholarship, to polemics, with a very sustained display of competence in his vocation as a banker, rising steadily to become the Chief Executive of First Bank of Nigeria before being appointed as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. His devotion to the betterment of the Nigerian public space was central to his combative posture, whether he was confronting the “old boys network” that Nigeria’s National Assembly seemed to have increasingly metamorphosed into or daring to challenge the executive arm of government, in the manner that public funds were not accounted for under the watch of Diezani Alison-Maduekwe, the sacred cow of the Jonathan administration. When Goodluck Jonathan exhumed some obscure report to remove Sanusi from office, he couldn’t have envisaged the turn of events that made Sanusi the new Emir of Kano. Allah yajikan Sarki, Ado Bayero; Allah ya ja zamanin Sarki Sanusi Lamido Sanusi!