By Ocherome Nnanna
ORDINARILY, the appointment of an emir should not draw comments from me. But the emir of Kano is not just another traditional ruler. Kano is touted as the second largest population centre in Nigeria after Lagos, though official figures insist it is the most populous state.

Though essentially a Muslim city, it is the industrial and commercial behemoth of Northern Nigeria, with a diversity of population drawn from all walks of life around Nigeria and beyond. Like its Southern counterpart (Lagos), Kano is very volatile, especially when it comes to issues of religion and politics. You cannot talk about the post of an Emir of Kano (just like the Sultan of Sokoto) without factoring in the incendiary and tensile issues of politics and religion.

Sanusi

This is where we already begin to feel the loss of Alhaji Ado Bayero, the recently deceased Emir of Kano. He was a traditional ruler who was deeply respected across the divides of the nation due to his fatherly disposition, not only to his core Hausa/Fulani Muslim subjects but also the community of all-comers who dwell and earn their living in Kano.

Ado Bayero made friends far afield. He took great risks with his close friend, the Ooni of Ife, Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II, to pay an unauthorised visit to Israel in 1984 and returned to be suspended by the Buhari/Idiagbon military junta for six months. That event later hastened the restoration of diplomatic ties between Nigeria and Israel.

He was a great friend of Biafra legend, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who, as the commander of the military facility in Kano in 1966 (barely three years after Bayero ascended to the throne) helped in frustrating the Coup of the Five Majors. It was due to Bayero’s pleasant disposition and father figure that some of the most violent uprisings traced to politics and religion in Kano were carefully managed to keep the city (and the country at large) united and thriving as a centre of commerce.

When Bayero joined his ancestors on Friday, June 6, 2014, I was a bit perturbed over the question of his successor. However, my worries were salved by the fact that one of his children, the Ciroma of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Ado Bayero, was the reported front runner among the kingmakers.

In fact, it had come out early last Sunday that the Ciroma had been selected. A national daily reported it as breaking news in its online edition, adding that a prominent Northern figure had tweeted that a new emir of Kano had emerged in the person of the Ciroma. It was, however, shocking when I came out of the tennis court on Sunday evening to learn that SLS had been approved and announced by the Government of Kano State as the new Emir of Kano.

The Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, had driven his Kwankwasiyya trailer into the royal grounds of the Kano ruling house. He has applied his casting vote as the prevailing political authority that has the power to pick and choose from the shortlist of the kingmakers. And it is obvious that his political interests as a prospective presidential aspirant under the All Progressives Congress, APC, banner came first over and above the popular yearnings of the average Kano person.

Once again, political authority has sublimated the yearnings of the people to personal whim, just as former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, in 1987, had ignored the popular choice, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, and chosen Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki as the Sultan of Sokoto. Just as we saw in the Sokoto episode, the people of Kano trooped into the streets to protest against the appointment of SLS, but were quickly dispersed by the security agents.

My fears about SLS as the Emir of Kano are based on our recent experience with him as the Governor of the CBN. From day one, SLS began a series of reckless experiments with our banking system which, though succeeded in stemming catastrophic failure of banks, but extracted heavy tolls that would have been avoided if he had taken it easy and cool. The position of emir requires someone who plays it easy and cool, like the late Ado Bayero. It is usually not for hotheads and squawking popinjays. Most emirs are seen and only heard when playing court to their subjects and guests, or at religious functions. They tread carefully, and think through before saying the few words that usually mean so much.

Will Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, as the Emir of Kano, temper the radicalism he delighted in demonstrating as the CBN Governor, a trait that got him booted out of office with a few months to the end of his official tenure? As CBN Governor, SLS felt free to say uncomplimentary things about the Igbos, Yorubas, the Niger Delta and Northern elders. He insisted on his right to express his opinions, and openly fancied himself as an “activist”.

He spent the money of the Bank in controversial charity and corporate social responsibility projects that portrayed him as someone sowing political seeds. He has even been accused by some of his critics of funding insurgent groups, though without concrete, cast-iron evidence. The general picture painted of him is that of an arrogant, volatile and truculent character as opposed to the usually sedate and genteel types usually favoured by kingmakers in the North to sit on the throne of an emir.

I am hoping that SLS will put his garrulous, hot-head past behind because anything to the contrary is a romance with disaster, what with the smoldering sentiments trailing his appointment. He should leverage on his natural gift as a communicator, build bridges and stay away from partisan politics as much as possible. Kano is not a place for risky experiments. It is already too deeply scarred by Boko Haram killings and bombings to be further stressed. Kano must be handled with the fatherly care that Ado Bayero applied successfully for 51 years, bowing out with grace and our collective applause.