ONE of Africa’s great sons, the late Chinua Achebe, writes in his well-known novel, Things Fall Apart, that “when a man says yes his chi says yes also.” This quote is taken from chapter four of the novel where the central character, Okonkwo, dismisses insinuations that luck may have played a role in his life. As far as Okonkwo is concerned, he achieved all his successes in life through his fiery ambition and unbreakable will.

Achebe writes: “…it was really not true that Okonkwo’s palm-kernels had been cracked for him by a benevolent spirit. He had cracked them himself. Anyone who knew his grim struggle against poverty and misfortune could not say he had been lucky….At an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all the land. That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed.” (Things Fall Apart, chapter 4, paragraph 3)

Suspended former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, is unlikely to ever claim to have struggled against poverty and misfortune. But, like Okonkwo, if the new Emir’s antecedents and supercilious attitude are anything to go by, he may very well say that luck has nothing to do with the successes he has achieved in life. And, in fairness to him, he may very well be right.

For clarity sake, let us all recall that SLS said yes very strongly like Achebe’s Okonkwo. As far as we know, SLS is the only Kano prince who said it in plain language for everyone to hear that his only ambition in life is to become the Emir of Kano. He said this when Emir Ado Bayero was still alive. That clearly is a man saying yes, and the fact that today he has achieved his life’s ambition is proof that his chi said yes also.

The similarities between the new Emir of Kano and Okonkwo may seem to end there but there are certain factors that may yet extend the similarities between the two men. For one, both can rightly be described as headstrong or stubborn. And it is not unlikely that the same fiery ambition and unbreakable will, which made Okonkwo a success and yet later rewrote his story in a less palatable way, may be at play in the instance under consideration.

To turn to contemporary times for clues, let us set aside Achebe’s deservedly well-regarded book for now. A contemporary writer, Mohammed Haruna, a long-time journalist of good repute and spokesman to General Abdulsalami Abubakar when the latter served as Head of State, dissected the SLS personality most succinctly back in an article published not too long ago.

Analysing Sanusi’s suspension as governor of the CBN on Wednesday, February 26, 2014 on the back page of the Daily Trust, Haruna wrote: “The trouble with Sanusi, however, was that he did not measure up to what he had led the public to expect of him as someone who had consistently spoken truth to power before he became CBN governor, and which he continued to do even after.”

In the article, published under the title, ‘Jonathan versus Sanusi the whistleblower’ (also published in The Nation of the same day under the title ‘GEJ vs Sanusi, the whistleblower’), Haruna warned that “…as a long standing social critic he [SLS] should’ve known better than to give those in authority sufficient ammunition to impugn his integrity and credibility. And this is exactly what the FRC report has done, even if only a fraction of its charges are true. The specific nature of the FRC report means it cannot be easily dismissed with the wave of a hand.”

Not done with chiding the future Emir for not exactly walking the talk he’d been talking for long, Haruna went on to add: “That he [SLS] built a one billion Naira car park at his official residence, as is common knowledge, and the fact that he was always accompanied by a huge and expensive retinue of bank staff, friends and hangers-on alike, to receive awards and honours abroad and here at home, were enough to suggest he did not act with the degree of prudence and integrity his crusade for good governance and transparency demanded of him.”

Another columnist, Femi Aribisala of the Vanguard, recently wrote about Sanusi’s new appointment and declared: “It is improper that a man who still has allegations of financial improprieties hanging over his head at the national level, to which he might have to answer in the court of law, should be appointed to such an important post.”

Arising from the foregoing, it is clear that, while no one is claiming to possess the gifts of Nostradamus, the sixteenth century French astrologer who made predictions that proved accurate centuries after his death, what seems obvious is that, if the new Emir of Kano persists in simply being the man he has always been, what happened in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to the admittedly successful Okonkwo may yet repeat itself.

Mr. FEMi  AYELABOWO, a political analyst,  wrote from Ibadan, Oyo State.