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The Restoration of Khalifa Sanusi Lamido Sanusi II Muhammad Sanusi II was reinstated as the 16th Fulani Emir of Kano by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf on Friday, May 24, 2024. However, by the next morning (May 25, 2024), Aminu Ado Bayero, who had been deposed on Thursday, May 23, 2024, after the Kano Emirates Council (Amendment) Bill was passed by the state House of Assembly and signed by Governor Yusuf, had made a return. |
The Prussian general and military thinker Carl Von Clausewitz once stated that war is merely politics by other means.
This notable aphorism was recalled as the contention for the throne of Kano's commercial hub unfolded dramatically yesterday.
Muhammad Sanusi II was reinstated as the 16th Fulani Emir of Kano by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf on Friday, May 24, 2024. However, by the next morning (May 25, 2024), Aminu Ado Bayero, who had been deposed on Thursday, May 23, 2024, after the Kano Emirates Council (Amendment) Bill was passed by the state House of Assembly and signed by Governor Yusuf, had made a return.
Sanusi is not only wed to Alhaji Ado Bayero's daughter, but he is also a second cousin to Aminu Ado Bayero; his father, the late Chiroman Kano, Aminu Sanusi, was a nephew of the late Emir Ado Bayero.
The two are now locked in a fierce battle for the prestigious Kano throne, which has stood for centuries.
The conflict and schemes in this familial feud, echoing the Kano civil war of 1893 to 1895, have been termed "quite regrettable" by many observers.
Similarly, the bloody Kano civil war was a cousinly conflict, waged between the offspring of Sarkin Kano Abdullahi Maje Karofi (Yusufawa) and his younger sibling, Sarkin Kano Bello (Tukurawa).
When Emir Ado Bayero passed away in June 2014, the then PDP-led federal government under Goodluck Jonathan quickly sent out congratulatory messages to Lamido Sanusi Ado Bayero as the new emir, even before the official declaration of Bayero’s successor.
This likely angered the APC-led Kano government under Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, which then named the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, as the new emir.
All the late emir's children pledged loyalty to the new emir except for Chiroma Lamido, who felt overlooked for the throne his father had held for over five decades.
Emir Sanusi later removed Chiroma from his position, who then moved to Abuja and was appointed managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, by the Jonathan administration.
The emir also relieved Bashir Ado Bayero, the Danlawan, of his district headship of Takai for defiance.
This politically tense environment and internal royal discord laid the groundwork for the Yusufawa-Tukurawa War.
Historical records indicate that Sarkin Kano Bello stripped some of his brother's children of their titles and lands and forced their husbands to divorce them.
Only two of Maje Karofi's sons, according to history, swore fealty to Sarkin Kano Tukur upon succeeding his father, Bello.
Emir Sanusi faced his greatest challenge when, in 2019, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje established four new emirates in addition to Kano: Bichi, Gaya, Karaye, and Rano. Ganduje also named Wamban Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, as the inaugural emir of the newly formed Bichi emirate.
This move not only caused a deep rift within the royal family but also divided political loyalties.
PDP supporters were perceived as allies of Emir Sanusi, who sought to reverse the fragmentation and reclaim his dominion over all of Kano.
The opposition, led by Kwankwaso who had switched from the APC to the PDP, viewed the creation of new emirates as political traps laid by the Ganduje administration to cement his status as a dominant political figure after his governorship.
Ganduje succeeded Kwankwaso, with whom he had fallen out early in his first term as Kano's governor.
While the APC celebrated the establishment of new emirates (believing it brought traditional authority closer to the people), the NNPP, under Kwankwaso's leadership, campaigned to rectify Ganduje's perceived injustices.
Not surprisingly, when the NNPP triumphed in Kano's 2023 gubernatorial election, many anticipated the dissolution of the new emirates. Calls for Sanusi's reinstatement grew loud among Kwankwasiyya supporters, much to the chagrin of the emir and staunch APC advocates.
With Sanusi's reinstatement and Bayero's return just two days after his deposition, Kano's relative tranquility seems threatened.
Professor Kamilu Sani Fagge, a political science professor at Bayero University, Kano, contends that the traditional institutions' long-standing prestige and honor have been diminished by partisan politics.
Fagge argues that Nigerian politics has shifted from a service-oriented endeavor to a self-serving business.
To halt the decline of this once esteemed and venerated institution, Fagge suggests that politics should be separated from traditional authority, akin to the British monarchy, where the succession system ensures that the throne's heir is typically the direct descendant of the deceased monarch, determined by birth order.
