SIR: Kano State House of Assembly repealed the Kano Emirates Law 2019 and its subsequent amendments in order to restore the dignity of Kano Emirate. In May 2024, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf assented to the law that abolished all the offices created by Ganduje’s law of 2019. All the five Emirs created and appointed by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje were removed by the new legislation.
He used positive law to create them and his successor used the same instrument to abolish them. But Ganduje, now the national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and his cohorts went to a Federal High Court to secure an order restraining the State Government from implementing the law.
Police, military and paramilitary officers and men were deployed to receive Aminu Ado Bayero and return him to Gidan Rumfa despite the fact that he has been legally removed. When that failed they took over Nassarawa Palace, using brute force and they put him there as a rival Emir, and to situate it rightly as the pretender. So why is this drama continuing?
Former Governor Ganduje had boasted that his five Emirates would last till the end of time. But APC lost all the elections in Kano State because of his unpopularity. None of his five Emirs was able to substantially influence any election despite significant effort to do so. The APC did not win in any of the eight local government areas that constitute Ganduje’s Kano Emirate. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is being deceived that Bayero is popular. What is the evidence? A person who cannot influence election can never claim to be popular in a sane society.
All the stakeholders of the Kano Emirate have pledged their loyalty to Sarkin Kano Muhammad Sanusi II, who holds court regularly in Gidan Rumfa. Only those outside Kano think he is an Emir. The Emirate is a traditional institution and therefore, to its custodians in Kano, everyday his image continues to plunge to the lower level since he cannot accept his fate as Sanusi did in 2020.
No Emirate titleholder apart from one of his brothers has sacrificed his position for him unlike the loyalty and respect shown to Sarkin Kano Muhammad Sanusi II. In 2019 when Ganduje decided to create five Emirates, 17 out of 36 titleholders affected by the change, sacrificed their positions and salaries because of their loyalty to the institution, which Sanusi symbolised. So how could Bayero be compared to Sanusi?
The real Emir is exercising real authority in Gidan Rumfa. The pretender does not control any district or ward as no one reports to him but to Sarkin Kano who is the Emir in Gidan Rumfa. Many of his followers keep encouraging him to remain antagonistic to the legacy of Sarkin Kano Ibrahim Dabo by not respecting the occupant of Gidan Rumfa, claiming that he was unjustly removed.
But that is not the case. Ganduje pretended to be like Shehu Danfodio by creating Emirates and reducing Kano Emirate from 44 local government areas to eight local government areas.
If this is not a betrayal of Sarkin Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero what else is it? So he wants the governor who won election against his wish and wish of Ganduje to restore the dignity of the Emirate and then hand it over to them.
So what is the source of Bayero’s influence if not Kano? He was influential because he was Emir of Kano and because of the people of Kano not the other way. According to Leo Africanus, Kano was the third largest city in Africa (after Cairo and Fez) in the 15th century, was it Ado Bayero who made it? Kano was the most prosperous province of the Sokoto Caliphate over 100 years before Ado Bayero.
The people of Kano are no more subjects but citizens, therefore, the sympathisers of Ado Bayero need to change their mindset. Emirship of Kano by custom belongs to the Ibrahim Dabo Dynasty. Any male descendant of Ibrahim Dabo is eligible to be Emir. It is not restricted to sons and descendants of Ado Bayero. The rules have not changed. Sons of Ado Bayero must elevate their disposition from pretension to humility.
Usman Muhammad Umar can be reached at [email protected].
