My dear Son
As I write this letter I do not know your address. I am addressing it to you as my son, because I know you understand why. I got to know you when you were a very young person, a boy about to enter Secondary School
Before then and, very importantly, I knew your Grand Father, Emir of Kano Sanusi and your uncle the late Ambassador Ado Sanusi. Circumstances had made it possible for me to become very close to both of them.
Your late father, Ambassador Aminu Sanusi and I were contemporaries and were also very close. We trusted each other. He was a man of thought, far sighted, kind, considerate and resolute.
You have always, from the first day we met, called me Baba: when you were younger but as the years rolled on you called me Baba Joda. I accept the courtesy and value the respects it conveys.
As a very young person, at our very first meeting, the questions you asked me and the points you raised were far and beyond your age and I thought that you possessed a great deal of potential. Your record in the public domain is proof enough of this assessment.
Your departure from the Throne of Kano, was predictable from your very beginning and from the moment you ascended to it. For Kano and for Nigeria, it may well be a blessing in disguise that you may now be able to address issues that are now urgent for our society as a person not encumbered by the burden of office.
I believe that your father, a gifted and far sighted man, understood what the future politics of our country portend and decided early not to be part of it.
The purpose of this letter to you is not to commiserate with you, because I know that you must have known the likely consequences of the principled position you have taken.
The reality we must face in Northern Nigeria is that the evil forces of feudalism that have kept us in bondage for so long are still there and fighting. You have been the only voice that has been telling us this truth. These forces will fight you and you know it