By Kazeem Akintunde
I have had two close encounters with the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi ll. The first was in Saudi Araba, during the 2015 hajj, and the second was in Kaduna, in 2021. The Saudi Arabia meeting was when he was appointed as the Amirul Hajj (leader of delegation) for the year’s hajj. That was few months after he was appointed as the Emir of Kano by the former Governor of the state, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Sanusi, without many of his aides and hangers on, wore a simple white Jellabiya, but still looked regal in his carriage. By then, he had put his suspension and eventual removal from office as the Governor of the Central Bank in 2014 by the then President, Goodluck Jonathan behind him.
As a member of the media team to the holy land, my interaction with the Emir was business-like, with me asking series of questions regarding the conduct of government officials to the holy land and the welfare of Nigerian pilgrims, to which he provided crisp and detailed responses. With the interview over, he offered fruits which was in a bowl beside him and gave instructions that we should be fed if we were interested. I came back with the impression of meeting a first-class Emir who understood what his office entails and was willing to interact with those in both high and low places.
The Kaduna encounter, even though from a distance, wasn’t that palatable. The former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, had appointed his friend, Sanusi, who had then been recently dethroned by the new Governor in Kano, Abdullahi Ganduje, to be the Vice chairman of the Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA). Emir Sanusi was to chair the Kaduna Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s annual trade fair opening ceremony put together by KADIPA.
Few hours to the commencement of the programme, El-Rufai had another urgent state matter to attend to, and he told his friend, Sanusi, to take charge of the opening ceremony. The master of ceremony who anchored the programme however made a ‘grave error’ while introducing Sanusi. He called Sanusi the former Emir of Kano. Indeed, Sanusi, by then, was a former Emir in Kano as another Emir had been appointed by Ganduje while he was banished from stepping his foot in the ancient city. But when he was given the microphone to address the gathering, he completely ‘finished’ the MC, wondering why he should be introduced as a former Emir. He almost pronounced a fatwa on the helpless guy. Not long after the incident, the MC was eased out of his position by his friend, Governor El-rufai and transferred to a less visible office.
Few years later, and like a cat with nine lives, Sanusi is back on the throne of Kano as the Emir, although in a controversial circumstance. After the May 29, 2023 handover date, a new Governor was elected in Kano, with the swearing in of Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP). One of the very early decisions the Governor took after his assumption of office was the dissolution of the five emirate councils created by Ganduje and the reappointment of Sanusi back to the throne.
Ado Bayero, who was appointed as the 15th Emir of Kano by Ganduje but removed by Yusuf, did not take the matter lying low, and with the support from the federal government, insisted that he is still the authentic Emir of the ancient city. While Sanusi holds court as the Emir from the Kofar Kudu Palace, Bayero relocated and subsequently settled at the Nasarawa Mini Palace, a resting destination for Emirs during traditional festivals, which also houses the graves of some late Emirs. With series of court cases on who the real Emir of Kano is, the city has had to endure two traditional rulers laying claim to one throne. In spite of that, many Nigerians are still wondering what makes the throne of Kano attractive to Sanusi.
Highly intelligent and cerebral, Sanusi could easily have gotten any appointment within and even outside the shores of the country if he set his mind to it. But he has never for once wavered in his conviction that the throne has been his life-long ambition.
Sanusi is the cherished grandson of Emir Muhammad Sanusi I (1954-1963), who was known for his strength of character and public spiritedness. Credited with modernizing Kano’s economy through industrial development, irrigation projects, and the opening of an international airport, Muhammad Sanusi I also reinvigorated the Emir’s morale and spiritual role by exercising the right to lead Friday prayers and serve as a shari’a judge. Through adopting his grandfather’s official title and other symbolic actions, Muhammad Sanusi II has explicitly signalled the continuity between his and his grandfather’s reigns.
After childhood Qur’anic studies and elementary school, Sanusi entered King’s College Lagos, then earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in economics at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he also taught economics. In 1985, he launched a distinguished banking career at ICON Ltd. Merchant Bankers, a subsidiary of Morgan Guaranty Trust and Baring Brothers. Later, he joined United Bank for Africa, running its credit and risk management division and then rising to the position of General Manager. In 2005, he moved to First Bank, where he was appointed Group Managing Director in 2009. Alongside his work in the financial industry, Sanusi never ceased pursuing his scholarship in Islamic history, thought, and law. After years of private study under the tutorial of a number of learned ulama, he left banking to enrol in the Africa International University in Khartoum, Sudan, where he earned a degree in Islamic Studies and Fiqh in 1997. His cosmopolitan outlook to life and his years in Lagos had given Sanusi a broader outlook to life, and he was therefore, ready to challenge the conservative nature of Kano.
But a radical on the throne of Kano? Kano is a conservative city whose residents live by a strict religious code of conduct. It is also the second biggest commercial city after Lagos.
Known for his frank and sometimes in-your-face attitude, he soon got into trouble when he was suspended as CBN Governor by then President Jonathan. Sanusi had alleged that $49.8 billion was missing from the government’s coffers. He ran into trouble again with then Governor Ganduje when he allegedly serially disrespected the Governor and that in most cases, allegedly won’t attend government functions where he was duly invited.
Back on the throne courtesy of the no-love-lost between Ganduje and Yusuf after the defeat of the APC in the 2023 governorship election in the state, Sanusi is already courting trouble among the Ulamas, Muslims clerics, and the conservatives in the state.
He stirred the hornets’ nest again last week when told a gathering that he has instructed his daughters to slap their husbands if their husbands became violent with them. The occasion was at the National Dialogue Conference on Gender-based Violence prevention from an Islamic Perspective themed: ‘Islamic Teachings and Community Collaboration for Ending Gender-Based Violence’ organised by the Centre for Islamic Civilisation and Interfaith Dialogue (CICID), Bayero University Kano (BUK), in collaboration with the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) with support from the Ford Foundation.
Let me quote the Emir: “You can take that verse and say that as a husband, I’ve been given this permission to beat my wife lightly. And nobody will deny that, nobody will say it is haram if you comply with all the rules. But if you live in a society in which those rules are never applied, nobody who is angry remembers to look for a chewing stick or a handkerchief. They just slap these women and punch them and kick them and beat them. I just wrote a doctorate thesis on Family Law, and I did research on nine courts, nine Shari’a courts in Kano. 41% of the cases over a five-year period had to do with maintenance. 26 per cent had to do with harm. And out of those, 45 per cent were cases of wife beating, domestic violence. And when we go to the content analysis, not one case of wife beating was light beating. We had women whose limbs were broken. We had women whose teeth were knocked out. We had women who were victims of constant beating with sticks. We had women where the husband and his other wives beat one of the wives. We’ve had cases of khadis having to send their sons to trial for criminal assault because of the nature of the beating against their wives. This is the common beating that happens”.
Then he added: “…Beating your wife or beating your daughter or beating a woman is prohibited. It is a crime. Let’s not even talk about handkerchief or chewing stick. It is just haram. It is prohibited. Allah says, all harm must be removed. And beating, gender-based violence is harm. And it must be removed. It just does not make sense. Now, I said it before, and I know I’ve been attacked for it, and I’ll continue saying it. When my daughters are getting married, I say to them, if your husband slaps you, and you come home and tell me my husband slapped me, without slapping him back first, I will slap you myself because I did not send my daughter to marry somebody so he can slap her. If you do not like her, send her back to me. But don’t beat her. And we must teach our daughters not to take it. And also teach our sons that it is not allowed to happen. It is not acceptable. It cannot happen. We have to bring up our children to understand that violence against the body of another human being, whether it’s your brother, or your sister, or your son, or your daughter, or your wife, that violence against persons violates the basic dignity of a human being.”
Intelligent submission, no doubt, but from the Emir of Kano? For the most part of last week, social media was on fire with Senator Shehu Sani, another radical, leading the fray. Taking to his Facebook page to condemn the position of the Emir, Sani said that Sanusi should not be encouraging domestic violence in form of slapping and slapping back.
“The very day slapping and slapping back becomes the order of a family, the marriage is irreversibly destroyed even if the couple remains together. Most of the participants in those mass weddings are literally divorced wives who believe in this revengeful idea of slapping back their husbands. What is the possibility that when you slap your first husband you won’t slap the second one? Did you grow up from a home where your father slapped your mother and your mother slapped him back? How did your parents resolve their problems? Should that not be your guide?
It’s sad that you can now see thousands of divorcees from the North in Abuja, who refuse to be patient with their husbands. They are virtually living a life of glorified prostitution moving from one Honourable to another Honourable, giving them mostly false promises of multi million naira contracts or supplies and sleeping with them. What they cannot tolerate from their husbands, they end up tolerating it with the Honourable whom they cannot slap back under any circumstance”. As at the last time I checked, Sani’s reaction had generated over 2500 comments.
While I do not subscribe to husband slapping their wives, canvassing for women to retaliate when abused goes against the belief of the conservative Kano culture, a situation that has held women down in abusive marriages in the region. Hiding under religious cover, women and girls are still seen as property that should be seen and not heard. They are married off very early once they start their monthly flow and some are divorced few years later. Early marriage in the North has been identified as one of the major causes of Vesicovaginal fistula in young girls up North. Education of the girl-child is still not regarded as a worthy cause in the North. Emir Sanusi has been canvassing for a change in orientation amongst his people, but I pray that he won’t run into trouble with the powers that be again.
He is a radical on the throne in Kano and to survive among the conservatives that dominate the city may be an uphill task. I can only wish him luck as he speaks truth to power.
See you next week.
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