Royalty in today’s Nigeria is sheer ridicule. That’s why the DailyMail last week could provide unassailable evidence showing that a prominent traditional ruler in the South-West is a notorious conman with a jail record and a history of filth. The royal father was once captured on video rolling up a joint. Career criminals, including landgrabbers, drug addicts and conmen, call the shots on many ancient thrones these days, moulding empires in their rotten image. They ride to power on the back of sleaze, intent on plunging society into hell with themselves.
Against this backdrop, the current comedy in Kano can be no surprise. Virtually swallowing the microphone and babbling to himself, the Kano State governor, Abba Yusuf, last week sacked the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, and reinstated his predecessor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi. The spectacle, furnishing the classic components of comedy—derision, automatism and incongruity– would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. The exalted throne, contaminated by the leprous hold of politics, has unraveled under a damnable cast of crooks. Emir Sanusi, back to his vomit as it were, is a most noxious study, and we provide only a sketch below.
When he was booted out of the Kano throne “for total disrespect to lawful instructions from the office of the governor”, the now resurrected Emir, previously accused of monumental sleaze by the Kano State government, presented himself as a victim of state despotism, a prisoner of conscience, the same tactic he had deployed when he was sacked from his Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) top job. He was gifted the throne on June 8, 2014, following the demise of Alhaji Ado Bayero, and as politicking for the 2015 polls heightened. President Goodluck Jonathan had, in May, 2013, queried Sanusi over a series of infractions. As detailed in an exclusive report published on www.icirnigeria.org, the query concerned 22 issues bordering on massive fraud. The 13-page report of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN), compiled following that query, accused him of terrible financial crimes. The allegations were so weighty, and anyone accused of such monumental crimes should have been facing the prospect of execution or, at the minimum, life behind bars, but Sanusi got rewarded with the Kano throne.
According to the FRCN report, Sanusi expended N1.257 billion on lunch for policemen and private guards in 2012, made bogus payments to airlines for currency distribution, held an account balance of N1.423 billion for an unidentified customer since 2008, violated financial regulations and carried out activities with financial implications not related to the CBN’s mandate; donated N1 billion to a political party and unilaterally wrote off a N3.5 billion housing loan debt owed by CBN workers. Announcing Sanusi’s suspension, Dr. Reuben Abati, Jonathan’s spokesman, said Sanusi committed acts of financial recklessness and misconduct that were inconsistent with the vision of the apex bank. Indeed, the Department of State Security Service (DSS) accused Sanusi of financing terrorism. However, because of the groundswell of opposition to the then president, the allegations were treated as mere politics.
Opposition politicians praised Sanusi to the heavens and when the kingship vacancy happened, the slot was given to him to spite the then president and kill his re-election chances. University professors allied to the opposition, some of whom were later to apologise for foisting Muhammadu Buhari on Nigeria, defended Sanusi like rabid dogs. Sanusi lapped up the adulation and, together with the tormentors of today, ushered in the ruinous Buhari government. So, ab initio, Sanusi’s emirship was hatched in rebellion, nurtured by malice aforethought, and grounded in perverse politicking. It is to the everlasting shame of Kano that a man accused of such monumental crimes was appointed to such an exalted throne simply because of crude politics, the same politics that has landed us in excruciating poverty today. The case that should have gone to trial thus died a miserable death, in large part because President Jonathan failed to be decisive, listening to pleas by the same highly placed Nigerians who tried to save Sanusi from his nemesis, Abdullahi Ganduje.
In a lengthy response to the FG’s allegations, Sanusi lauded his record as CBN Governor. As it turned out, however, no throne can change human character. Sanusi, as Kano emir, allegedly ran the place using his CBN template. The report of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission, gory in every respect, gave lurid details of mindboggling corruption allegedly perpetrated by the emir. It accused the royal father of misappropriating N3.4 billion between 2014 when he was installed Emir of Kano and 2017, contravening Section 120 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), Section 8 of the Kano State Emirate Council Special Fund Law 2004, and Section 314 of the Penal Code as well as Section 26 of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission Law 2008 (as amended). Against that backdrop, the Ganduje government had to boot him out “in order to safeguard the sanctity, culture, tradition, religion and prestige of the Kano Emirate built over a thousand years,” the same factors that should have precluded his appointment in the first place.
As CBN Governor, Sanusi overreached himself, wrecked the economy with reckless outbursts, and constituted himself into an opposition to the president. Had Olusegun Obasanjo been president then, such a character would have landed in jail, not the palace. But he got rewarded with a throne while his successor, accused of similar crimes, is embroiled in legal troubles, pointing to the geopolitical imbalances that subsist in this Lugardian affliction. Anyway, another clown can come tomorrow and declare Yusuf’s actions null and void. If things continue this way, an emir will soon be sacked for eating a bigger plate of tuwo than his liege lord the governor. It is clear that there is at the moment no Emir of Kano fulfilling the dreams of Kano people but Emir of the governor of Kano. The throne has been turned into ping pong by a gang of soulless, leaderless leaders. What a tragedy. The next governor will have his own Emir and when Gambari kills Fulani, the case will be dismissed.
A man accused of such monumental crimes is not fit for any throne, even if he was removed by a bribe-taking clown. The future, filthy as hell, will come with different stories of abuse of due process in the award of contracts, financial recklessness and obstruction of investigation. It is hard to imagine a more horrendous spectacle.
