Don’t play politics with Kano emirate, Mohammed tells Tofa’s group

Elder statesman, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, has enjoined the presidential candidate of the defunct National Republic Convention (NRC), Alhaji Bashir Tofa, not to play politics with issues relating to the creation of additional emirate councils in Kano State.

Speaking to reporters in Abuja yesterday, he maintained that the decision by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje to create additional emirates councils was in line with laid down rules and regulations.

The Second Republic minority leader of the House of Representatives faulted Kano elders under the Tofa-led Advocates For United Kano who frowned at the decision on the basis that it was an attempt to destroy the 1,000-year-old heritage of the Kano emirate council on the altar of politics.

“Those making such noise are playing politics, and if they are playing politics, what makes them think some other people would not play politics against their own interests?

“How come Bashir Tofa, from the time he stood for the controversial June 12 election till date, has not found common cause with any issue which affects the lives of the common Kano people?

“Is it now he is remembering that he is relevant politically? He is playing politics. He knows we know he is playing politics and it is not in the interest of anybody,” he said, urging people not to listen to what the elder statesman was saying.

Asked whether Ganduje erred on the decision to create more emirate councils, he retorted: “There is absolutely nothing wrong in the action he took. Look, a state nearby called Jigawa was carved out of the Kano. Today, they have five emirates in Jigawa. Yet Kano is three times the size of Jigawa. Why didn’t anybody say ‘due to history, no emirate should be created apart from Hadeija, Gumel and Kazaure?

“The Kano Emirate Council brought their lawyer, argued in the court of law. They said it was wrongly done. Now the Kano government has gone back to re-enact the law and signed into law and then somebody is telling us it was retrogressive.”

The Tofa-led group, while kicking against the decision to create additional emirate councils, called on the state government to cause the repeal of “the obnoxious law creating the new emirates.”