DEFENDER ROYALTY: My only worry always is what would I say to God on the Day of Judgment if I’m part of a process that makes life difficult for my people – Emir of Kano, Sanusi II

*Tells how previous government created current crisis

*Says the people of Kano never asked to be divided but one person divided us

*‘Ours is homogeneous society where Muslims and Christians are one’

*Recalls how Rogo church was burnt but he rebuilt it with personal money

*Reveals ‘This is not about me but about Kano State Emirate interest’

*Happy this government and Assembly have restored unity of Kano Emirate – Sanusi II

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness Muhammadu Sanusi II, speaks to a team of editors on the sideline of their visit to Kano on Sunday June 9, 2024 touching on several aspects from the emirate tussle, economy and governance. Sanusi II says although he was once told by some people to see himself as traditional ruler whose duty was only to advise government and keep quite if his advice is not taken. He, however, gives reason he could not have kept quite as his silence would not be golden if looming dangers that he saw in government policies as an economist and former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) were allowed to let loose on Kano without him doing saying something after seeing something. That advice he gave against Chinese loan for rail projects, he says, would have impeded the ability of present government in the state to vote 30 percent of his budget to education development while still being able to pay salaries and do other things. He said, “these people that come and greet me, people that come and love me, what do I say to God on the Day of Judgment if I’m part of a process of making their life difficult?”  But then, he says, giving that advice was why he lost his throne at the time. Excerpts:

What are those practical lessons that you learnt, while away from the throne that you will like to bring to bare now that you have been reinstated as emir, to move the emirate to the next level?

Well as you know life is always a continuous process of learning and relearning. And for me, I had always believed as they say that we should not waste a crisis, and my own crisis presented an opportunity for me to do something else. In the last four years I had not been idle, I just completed writing a PhD thesis in University of London, a week before I was returned to Kano. I will be going back next month to conclude some things, because I will be graduating in September. Let us just take that as an example, the PhD thesis I wrote was on the codification of Islamic Family Law as an instrument of social reform.

“I am very grateful to God that the traditional institutions in Nigeria have a very rich representation of people with experience from diverse backgrounds. I know that many people outside just look at us as some relics of the past culture. But look at it, Sultan of Sokoto was a General, the Shehu of Borno was a permanent Secretary, the Etsu Nupe was a General, Emir of Zuru was a General, Emir of Zazzau was an Ambassador, I was Governor of Central Bank, Emir of Fika, DSS, Oba of Lagos, AIG of Police,  Oba of Benin Ambassador, Obi of Onitsha, a banker.”

This was one of my major projects as you know, as an emir, trying to codify Islamic law to deal with a number of issues around child marriage, around domestic violence, around child spacing and basically women and children’s rights and so on. And because I did a PhD on the subject matter, some of the things I learnt basically made me rethink some of the premises upon which we are passing that law and if I am to reconstitute the committee, I will have different areas of emphasis and I have different understanding of some of the issues now.

So, I will give an example; we always talk about child marriage as a problem and we think that the solution is to have a law that says that every girl must reach the age of 18 before she gets married, but the reality is that the solution is in what you came to Kano to do yesterday (Saturday June 8, 2024 declaration of state of emergency on education by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf). You have to be at the schools, you have to provide them with what they are going to do.

We did a research and we find out that within Kano City and environs, we don’t have child marriage, because there are schools all over. Parents can send their children to school, they can go to secondary school, and they have teachers. If you go to the villages and there are no schools and a girl is 11 or 16 years, and there are no schools and teachers and nothing to do, the father marries her off. It is not religion, it is not culture, it is just a failure of the state to provide development.

So, many of the things that we have taken as either religious misunderstanding or culture are actually issues of governance and development and the failure of the state. We want to have minimum age like the Arab states, fine, but do we register birth? If we don’t start registering everybody, how do we know the age of the child, how do we enforce that in a court of law. These are just some of the examples.

“So, when I, as Emir now, come out and say, ‘Gentlemen, my people have voted, all I’m asking is, let them have the person they voted for.’  I’m not in politics, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not supporting a political party I’m not supporting a candidate. I am supporting my people. I’m defending the rights of my people to choose their leader. If that leader is a good leader, thank God. If it’s a bad leader, after four years, they vote for somebody else. So, for me, I think my understanding of my role is such that if I cannot, if I’m unable to, based on my conscience, promote the interests of my people, then I don’t want the job.”

Part of my work was that I gathered data from nine Sharia courts from the three Senatorial District in Kano and asked, what are the major marital problems faced by women in Kano? We started from the premise of what is a global discourse on the problem because every society has its own issues. Do you know what we discovered? More than 40 percent of all the cases in court have to do with men not providing maintenance for the families, it is poverty. Men are not proving food, or accommodations, or they have divorced the women and are not taking care of the children.

So, many of these socio cultural problems have their roots in economics and therefore, this whole issue of proving an education especially for the women, and proving them an opportunity to earn a living, is the solution. So, when we write the law, we must bear in mind these things. Now, some of the things I have seen in the speech of the governor, from yesterday are the kind of things that other states had said in the past because my thesis also did a comparative analysis with Morocco.

What do they do in Morocco? They built the schools, they invested in school transportation just like we are now talking about school transportation. The girls would be moved from villages to the nearest schools. They also invested in school feeding and they equally provided financial support to the poorest families who are ready to send their sons and daughters to school. So, they don’t need them to earn a living to send their kids to school.

If a parent is below certain poverty line, and he allow his daughter to go to school, the government will still have to give him some money, so that he does not have to marry his daughter off.  He doesn’t also have to get her to trade, she goes to school, and the parents get some compensation for sending her to school.  Now, that allows the girls to get education and earn a living at the end.

For me, the PhD was a major eye opener and like I said earlier, I am not the kind of person that just sits in one place and says, ‘Okay now that I am not Emir, let me sit until I become something else.’  No, I do something with my time and I have moved. For me, I knew I was on transition.  I was a Governor of Central Bank, I was told to move and I moved, people have jobs and they resign, former this or that is nothing. I moved on but now, God decreed that I must come back, it is a new transition.

But I have improved myself, when I finish my PhD hopefully, I will approach Bayero University to grant me opportunity to once in a while go and give academic lectures, and postgraduate seminars on Islamic law.  I would not have the time to give a full course or to mark, but all this research and data that I had gathered in Kano need to be shared with the younger generation.

The second thing is that we need to realize that we are in a very difficult place as a country because of many years of economic mismanagement and you all know that, for the past 10 years, I have been talking about it. People are talking about NNPC and oil revenues and the dollar but look, how long have I been talking about these?  In 2011, 2012, 2013, this was exactly what we were trying to avoid. I was listening to the debate about subsidy, and I remembered that I said people don’t know what an economic crisis is until they get into one and that is what we are in now.

Crimes, this exactly what we knew will happen. Food becomes unaffordable, people’s incomes get wiped out, wages can no longer get the people anywhere. This is why the management of the economy is crucial. What can I do? I give advise to the government, as much as I could, on how to manage resources and also see to the best of my ability how to get the private sector to come in to build the economy because, government alone cannot do everything.

“But for me, if I had remained on the throne by keeping quiet and for the next 40 years, government could not provide employment, education, healthcare, infrastructure and the likes, it would have thrown Kano into a crisis, so it was not worth it. I think that part of the challenges that we have is this whole issue of where do we draw the line. We have to give advice, sometimes on minor issues, and even when the government gives deaf ears and we are not happy we can ignore.”

It is fantastic for the 30 percent budget on education.  We also need private sector to come in, we need to build infrastructure even in the educational sector. Kano has produced two richest Nigerians; may be two richest Africans.  We need to start to seriously talk to those people to come and invest in education and skills in Kano.  So, part of my job as Emir is to call these citizens of Kano and other well meaning Nigerians to see how they can come in and address these problems.

For me a transition is a transition. I have never been hounded by an office.  Not being in Kano has never stopped me from continuing to do service because, at the end of the day that is what matters, not the title.

How are you going to galvanise and collaborate with other traditional rulers across the federation to build the nation despite the mismanagement of our diversity?

I am very grateful to God that the traditional institutions in Nigeria have a very rich representation of people with experience from diverse backgrounds.  I know that many people outside just look at us as some relics of the past culture.  But look at it, Sultan of Sokoto was a General, the Shehu of Borno was a Permanent Secretary, the Etsu Nupe was a General, Emir of Zuru was a General, Emir of Zazzau was an Ambassador, I was Governor of Central Bank, Emir of Fika, DSS, Oba of Lagos, AIG of Police, Oba of Benin, Ambassador, Obi of Onitsha, a banker. The reality is that, whichever way you look, security or academia, we have that wealth.  That also goes into the quality of advice that we offer.

So, for us, we see ourselves as partners to the government on how to give the best advice based on our experience and how to manage things.  I will give you an example from my experience in Kano the last time.  The previous government wanted to borrow $1.8 billion from China to build 75 kilometers of rail and the forex then was N197 to a dollar.  And, as a trained economist and former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, I could see the growth in money supply and I was sure that the Naira was not going to remain in that artificial level of N200 for a long time. And part of my job was to advise the government, ‘Look, this amount of money you want to borrow, if the naira depreciates to N500 to the dollar, this money will become N1 trillion. Your internally generated revenue is not up to N20 billion, you will need about N100 billion per annum just to service the debt. It is not sustainable, if you go down this part, you are going to leave Kano with an unsustainable burden for the next 30, to 40 years, and generation after generation, the government will not be able to earn enough to service the debt.’

“This was advice I gave quietly, three, four, five times, and the government refused to listen. Some people told me then that my job was to advise, and I had advised, so if they did not do it I should just keep quiet. For me, I could not sit in all conscience and allow that to happen because the government will go and for the next 40 years our children and grand children would suffer for it. Today, if that loan had been taken, this government would not be able to even pay salaries. So, all these 30 percent educational budget, the money would not be there because the money would be going to service debt…”

This was advice I gave quietly, three, four, five times, and the government refused to listen. Some people told me then that my job was to advise, and I had advised, so if they did not do it I should just keep quiet. For me, I could not sit in all conscience and allow that to happen because the government will go and for the next 40 years our children and grand children would suffer for it.

Today, if that loan had been taken, this government would not be able to even pay salaries. So, all this 30 percent educational budget, the money would not be there because the money would be going to service debt.  And look at the exchange rate today, N1,500 for a dollar.  That means that the money would have become N3 trillion to build 75 kilometers of rail. In the end, I took the nuclear option of going public to stop it and that was how I almost lost my throne.

But for me, if I had remained on the throne by keeping quiet and for the next 40 years, government could not provide employment, education, healthcare, infrastructure and the likes, it would have thrown Kano into a crisis, so it was not worth it. I think that part of the challenges that we have is this whole issue of where do we draw the line. We have to give advice, sometimes on minor issues, and even when the government gives deaf ears and we are not happy we can ignore.

“If you go to the villages and there are no schools and a girl is 11 or 16 years, and there are no schools and teachers and nothing to do, the father marries her off. It is not religion, it is not culture, it is just a failure of the state to provide development.”

But there are fundamental existential issues that we have to have the courage as the conscience of the people because we are the ones, who will be here.  The governments are there for just four or eight years, if we live long enough like our predecessors, 50 years, so we have to think about the lives of these children.  I think that when Governors understand we are partners and we advise them based on our experience and they respect it, we will generally get along very well.  An assumption is that we are all working for the same people. We have a situation where the focus is different; I am interested in the people somebody is doing something else.

So, we have these challenges and the rest. We don’t have constitutional role but, so long as the people love us and respect us; I mean you come out here every day and you see hundreds of people coming to pay homage. I don’t give them money, I don’t give contracts, I don’t give employment and I cannot jail anybody, so what are they coming for?  Just love. What do I owe them?  I did not create them but God placed me in this position, gave me honour, the least I can do for them is to speak up for them.

Or you have an election and the people vote, we tell politicians that Government office is not a human right.  Nobody has the human rights to be a president or governor or senator or councilor. The right is for the people to vote for who they want.  It is the people, who have the right. If you elect a governor and somebody takes it and give to someone else, it is not the rights of the Governor that was taken, it is the right of the people, who voted. If they vote for X, give them X.  If they make a mistake, after four years, they will correct it themselves.

“If you elect a governor, and somebody takes it away from you and gives it to somebody else, it’s not that governor’s right that’s been taken. It is the right of the people who voted that was taken. If they vote for X, give them X. If they make a mistake after four years, they’ll vote for Y. But if you take it from X and give to Y, it is not the right of X that you took. It is the people whose rights you took.”

So, when I, as Emir now, come out and say, ‘Gentlemen, my people have voted, all I’m asking is, let them have the person they voted for.’  I’m not in politics, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not supporting a political party I’m not supporting a candidate. I am supporting my people. I’m defending the rights of my people to choose their leader. If that leader is a good leader, thank God. If it’s a bad leader, after four years, they vote for somebody else. So, for me, I think my understanding of my role is such that if I cannot, if I’m unable to, based on my conscience, promote the interests of my people, then I don’t want the job.

I would rather leave than be part of a process that, according to my conscience, is going to damage the very people. But these people that come and greet me, people that come and love me, what do I say to God on the Day of Judgment if I’m part of a process of making their life difficult? So, you asked about managing the fallout. You see, this was something created, manufactured by the previous government. The people of Kano never asked to be divided.

In parts of this country, you have had emirates created and kingdoms, and you can understand that if you go to Kaduna State, at one time, you had everything under Zaria. But you had huge Christian minorities, different ethnic groups, and chiefdoms were created for them. It makes sense, if they felt that they did not want to be under the emirate system or under what they saw as a self-denial system. But Kano is a largely homogeneous society. If you see the Christians in Kano, they are part of us. They don’t say they want to leave us.

They’re not asking for a different system, nobody. If you go to Tudun Wada, we have Christians. We had an issue in Rogo. You may remember this, there was an issue. People went and burned the church. I went to Rogo, I took out my own personal money and rebuilt the church.

Attempted dismemberment of Kano Emirate

So, we are one people. Nobody asked for it. So what we are dealing with is a situation where somebody divided, and actually when you create these things, some people get some privileges. They didn’t ask for it, but they’ve enjoyed it for four years.

Now when they lose it, it’s a problem. But the problem is not what has happened today. It is what happened four years ago. If it had not been done, we would not be in this situation today. We are one family, we are one people. Somebody comes, divides us up. Even in this family, he takes one emirate, gives a part of the family. Now, when people enjoy it for four years and you take it away from them, it becomes a problem.

But the truth is, when you take the larger picture, this is a kingdom that has existed. If you go to the king list in Kano, the king list from Baguada starts in 999 AD. We have a list of kings. From Baguada up to me in my first term, I was the 57th. If you add my cousin and myself, I’m 57th and 59th.

In that period, we’ve had the expansion of Arewa kingdon. The only time a part of Kano was taken out was when Jigawa State was created. Because Jigawa State, put together Kazaure Emirate, Hadejia Emirate, Gumel Emirate, but those three combined were not big enough to make a viable state and the Hadejia and Gumel people wanted a state. So, part of Kano was carved out. And these are the two Emirates of Dutse and Ringim. We were all hurt. As a family, it’s like cutting off a part of you. At least Ringim is still with members of our family. That’s fine. It was necessary.

But what was left still remains what has been there for a thousand years. Now, if you come one day, just like the British partitioned Africa, and you see, people need to understand what this government did, because people don’t understand what that law was and the kinds of damage it did to our history’s fabric.

You know, the way the Europeans came and just drew lines on a piece of paper. People say Nigeria is a geographical expression. People are talking about that. You just take people, and this is, they just came and drew. These nine local governments go there. These nine go there, just like that. You don’t create emirs for people. Somebody who for one thousand years has never been under you, somebody now decrees that this is your king, How?

Take Bichi for instance. Bichi as a town was run by a village head for centuries. It only became a district under the British. The first district head of Bichi was Abdullahi Bayero in the 1930s; my great-grandfather.  Before him, it was a village head. There is something called Sirkin Bichi which is a village head. He’s the king of the town of Bichi.

Sarkin Bichi, historically, reported to a district head in Dawakin Tofa, that is Maadakin Kano.  Now, you make a law and say you have created an emir in Bichi, and that Dawakin Tofa should report to Bichi?  You had families that waged the jihad. The Yolawa; the family of Madakin, the Jobawa; family of the Makama. These are kingmakers.

You now take two of the four kingmaker families, Madakin and Makama, and you now say they should go and report to an emirate that you created in Bichi. Something that was run by a village head who was a district head. How? You make a law and say, these are the kingmakers in Kano.

We have had four traditional makers in all our history. Because you like a particular individual, you just decide as a governor, that we now have five kingmakers. Out of nowhere, you create a kingmaker position for an individual.

You’re dealing with Kano. You’re not dealing with me. Am I making sense? It’s not about me as a person. It’s about our history, our culture. How does he become a kingmaker? The other four kingmakers, how did their families become kingmakers? When they went and waged the jihad, when they came and risked their lives, when they reached this agreement, those four choose the emir. We are not superior to them. We’re all part of the jihad. And they agreed for peace. We don’t want to have three, four, five ruling houses. We’ll allow you to produce the emir, but we will decide who becomes the emir. These are the four.

This is the right they claimed for themselves for their contribution to the jihad. How does somebody now take Mr. Adefaka and say I’m creating a fifth kingmaker, Adefaka’s family. What right do you have to join those four?

What did you do? Did I give you the right to be a kingmaker? What? There’s just so much wrong. And then, the kingmaker families as well. You have different lines in the family. Then you have a law that puts in just one line. Do you know that out of the four kingmakers that we had, based on that law, three of them were not even qualified. Because they didn’t even understand who are the kingmaking families; which families produce the Madaki; descendants of two different people. Makama, descendants of two different people. Sirkin Dawaki; descendants of three or four different people. That is our tradition. It’s only, Sirkin Bayi that is made of one person.

But they came and took one, one, one person. The current Madaki is not the descendant of the person they put in the law. The current Makama is not a descendant of the person they put in the law. The current Sirkin Dawaki Metuta is not a descendant of the person they put in the law. So, they have, a law has already disqualified three out of four kingmakers, because there was no consideration of the history.

Then check the different Emirates they’ve made. If you go to Rano, there are two or three ruling houses, they take one. They’ve killed two houses.  Karaye, two or three ruling houses. Oh, you know the house of, one of the most famous Sirkin Karaye Garba, his family has been knocked off. Gaya, four or five ruling houses. You give one.

So even in those Emirates that they created, what they have done is they have destroyed the people. But we, who appoint them as district heads, know the families from which we select the district heads.

I am making this point, so you understand that this is not about me versus somebody. This was an entire assault on a system, even if you want to do it. If it had been well motivated.

If you sit down with us to discuss and if people of Rano or people of Gaya, if genuinely they say, they want, they want an Emirate and the government says we want to do an Emirate, there’s a way of doing it. You sit down, you look at the history; okay, who are the ruling families? How do you do it? You know, what is the process? And you do it in line with our custom and tradition.

Kano Emirate not created by Nigerian Constitution

The Kano Emirate was not created by the Nigerian Constitution. The Emirate existed before Nigeria. The Kano Emirate existed before the Sokoto Jihad. Even Uthman Danfodio did not create Kano Emirate. All that happened was that some of his disciples waged a Jihad in Kano and conquered Kano. But Kano was in existence. You will never find a law in the Nigerian Constitution. You never have a law that created the Kano Emirate.  So, how does a State House of Assembly get the Constitutional right to amend something that was not created or amend something that was not created by the Constitution, that does not even exist in the Constitution?

But the law, you will see, is an Emirates Appointment and Deposition Law, which already presumes that there is an Emirate. It’s about how you appoint an Emir. You know? But there is no law creating the Emirate. So, and therefore when he (Umar Ganduje) wanted to create these Emirates, he could not find a law to amend. He started by amending Emirates Appointment and Deposition Law, which the court struck down.

So, he had to de novo ex nihilo, out of nothing create a law and create Emirates. New Emirates that never existed, something called a Kano Emirate with eight local governments. That Emirate with eight local governments has not existed in our one thousand years of history. The same thing with the Bichi Emirate, Rano Emirate, Gaya Emirate. None of them exist in one thousand years of history.

This is an attack on our system and on our collective history. We have to deal with it. And we cannot, in the interest of preserving something with a history of four years, abolish a history of one thousand plus years.

That is all that happened. That is all. It was not targeted at any individual. It was targeted at any family, at any person. But of course, the people who were beneficiaries of this would hurt. And we understand that. It is not their fault. But we cannot because we do not want to harm them or hurt them allow this.

So managing the situation is for all of us as citizens of Kano as members of the royal family is for all of us to look at the big picture and see that what has been done has been done to restore the glory of our emirate and to protect our own history and custom. For me even now that I am here only God knows how long I will be here. I can die tomorrow.

Good govt, Assembly’ve restored unity of Kano Emirate – Sanusi II

Another governor can come tomorrow and say that he has removed me, it doesn’t matter. But I am happy if he does not touch the emirate. I am happy that I will not leave a history that it was during my time that this one thousand years of history was destroyed. So, I am grateful to this government, grateful to this Assembly that they have corrected that for me; that we have the emirate restored to what it was and Insha’Allah that when I die or when I leave, the person who inherits will inherit what we had. It’s about the system, not about me or about any individual.

Why did you not go to court to challenge your removal as 14^th Emir of Kano?

A number of reasons. I have told you that I don’t have a fundamental right to be an Emir. I am one of hundreds of princes. God chose me. And if God says I should leave, for me, I take it that God knows better than me why I had to leave. I want you to think about it. Okay, let’s say I go to court.

I just got a letter that said you are removed for insubordination. I had never been queried for insubordination. The details of the insubordination were not given. I had not been given any chance to defend myself. So, it was clear that the state and federal governments had both decided that it was time for me to go. Okay?

So, let’s even assume that the court said I should come back, do you think, for me I was looking forward to working with that government?  Would I have been happy as an Emir in the last three years working with that government? You’re under a governor, the law gives him the power to be on top of you. He has said he does not like you. He has made it clear he does not like you. If I come, he would just make my life miserable.

I was going through one story after the other, one fake story, one social media insult, and in my position, I cannot respond. So, for me, I had a happier life in Lagos with my friends, publishing my books, doing my PhD, doing my UN work, doing my Tijaniyyah work, doing my Tabata Boko work, than sitting here in a constant fight with the government.

Secondly, look at Gwandu. The Emir of Gwandu was removed under Obasanjo, how many years now?  Almost 20 years. The State High Court said he was illegally removed and returned him. So, there was an appeal. The Court of Appeal said he was illegally removed and returned him. It is at the Supreme Court but the Supreme Court has not yet spoken out about him. I mean, do I have 20 years fighting in court to come back to the throne?

So, for me, I had Emir for six years, alhamdulillah, I had done what I did. At least the only reason I would have gone to court was if they had removed me on an allegation that harmed my reputation because, the only currency I have is my integrity. So, if they had accused me, say, of fraud or something for which I would have had to go to court to clear my name, but they said insubordination.

So, the government was asked, “What are the reasons of insubordination?” They said, “Sometimes he is invited to meetings, and he does not come. For every meeting, he will not come.”  Many Nigerians, who saw that story, that news, say I don’t even need to defend myself because if you are going to remove an Emir and the only reason you can have is that you invite him for some meetings that he does not come, you know then that nobody takes you seriously.

Everybody knows that this was not the reason. And I always felt that if it was God’s will that I’ll return and, if not, I go and continue my life.

The only court case I filed

I went to court to challenge their attempt to keep me in exile and under house arrest to enforce my fundamental human rights but, I did not go to court to challenge the removal because I didn’t even have to, because it was self-evident on the face of it that this was just a political act.

How does Your Royal Highness like to be remembered?

You know, in the Quran, Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him) had a prayer, he said (quoting prayer in Arabic) “and grant me an honourable mention among those who come after me”.  All I hope for and all I pray for is that, when I leave this world, when people remember me, they will not be cursing me. They’ll be praising me, they’ll be praying for me. That is all. How that happens, I don’t know. But this is my prayer. That the people of Kano and the people of Nigeria will remember me and say, “He was a good man. God, have mercy on him.”

Because when you are in leadership, you will end up in one of two ways. You can leave leadership and everybody is cursing you, blaming you. God will never forgive that person. You’ve seen leaders that, even in their lifetime, they’ve left office but people have already said, “God will not forgive you. It will not be good for you.” I do not want that.

So, how I want to be remembered is, I would like to leave this world and have the people that I leave behind remember me and pray for me for good.