By Olu Fasan

THE deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, ascribed his dethronement to the will of God as he did his enthronement. “The one who gives, has taken,” he said. But, in truth, Sanusi’s dethronement and his earlier enthronement were products of political machinations, of calculated human actions, to which God was merely an eyewitness!

The religious fatalism that attributes whatever happens to us to God ignores the role of human agency and the power of choice that God gives us. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God said: “I have set before you life and death; therefore, choose life”. And Proverbs 27: 12 says: “A prudent person sees danger ahead and avoids it, but the simple keeps going and pays the penalty”. So, there are consequences for human actions.

The truth is that Sanusi Lamido Sanusi took consequential political risks. They paid off and helped him to become the Emir of Kano; but they have now cost him the throne. This is not a criticism of the former emir for, as he rightly said: “If you have to die, do it standing; not on your knees.” Emir Sanusi certainly “fell” standing! No one can accuse him of cowardice. Both as Central Bank governor and as Emir of Kano, Sanusi was driven by a principled conviction to say and do what he felt was right regardless of the cost.

In December 2010, Sanusi was given the “Central Bank Governor of the Year 2011” award by The Banker magazine, a subsidiary of the Financial Times. The citation read: “In the 18 months that he has been in office, Lamido Sanusi has salvaged a crumbling financial sector, taken on Nigeria’s powerful and corrupt bank managers and initiated reforms that have put Africa’s most promising market back on the map for investors”.

I was honoured to be invited to the high-profile ceremony at the London Hilton Hotel, Park Lane. As evidence of Sanusi’s connections with royalties across the South West, the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona and the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, attended the event. The then Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, was represented by his son, Prince Adetokunbo Sijuade!

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But what I really took away from the ceremony was his legendary courage. He dedicated the award to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Sanusi said he went to Yar’Adua and told him of his radical plans, and that Yar’Adua assured him in the presence of the then chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Farida Waziri, that he would back his campaign to the hilt, urging him to prosecute it “without fear or favour”. He certainly did, with the imprisonment and humiliation of several powerful Nigerians.  And he saw Yar’Adua as comrade-in-arms! Not so President Goodluck Jonathan! Sanusi didn’t believe Jonathan was as committed to tackling corruption as Yar’Adua. He was determined to take the battle to the inner sanctum of the Jonathan administration. In 2014, Sanusi wrote to President Jonathan alleging that $49.8 billion was missing from the federation account. In her book, Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister at the time, admitted money was indeed missing “but far from the almost $50 billion (Sanusi) was talking about.” She reckoned the amount ranged from “$10.8 billion to $12 billion, perhaps closer to $12 billion”. In the end, though, the amount frequently cited is $20 billion.

Whether Sanusi intended it or not, the allegation of the “missing billions”, coming very close to the 2015 general election, became a powerful ammunition that the All Progressives Congress, APC, used mercilessly against President Jonathan and his party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Sanusi became APC’s “poster boy”. When President Jonathan suspended him as governor of the Central Bank on allegations of “financial recklessness”, APC effectively adopted him as their own. It was during this time that the then Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, died; at last, Sanusi was on the verge of fulfilling his life-long ambition!

But as Tanko Yakassai, a leader of Arewa Consultative Forum, said recently, Sanusi wasn’t the choice of the kingmakers. Yakassai said the eldest son of the late emir “was announced as the emir but it was later changed”. Well, Sanusi was APC’s choice.

Fortunately, the then governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, fell out with President Jonathan and left PDP to join APC. He gave Sanusi the emirship. Truth is, if Kwankwaso was still in PDP and loyal to Jonathan, Sanusi wouldn’t have been the Emir of Kano in the first place.

In an interview with the Financial Times in 2018, Sanusi admitted that much. As the paper wrote: “Jonathan and the governor of Kano were adversaries. Any enemy of Jonathan’s was a friend of the governor. Sanusi got the nod”. Of course, Sanusi saw this as God’s handiwork. But as David Pilling, the paper’s Africa Editor, who conducted the interview, mused: “If God relies on the machinations of Nigerian politics to bring about His will, then He really does work in mysterious ways.”

Well, Sanusi says God later changed His mind, orchestrating his dethronement. But, in truth, these were cold, calculated acts of men. Sanusi was a beneficiary of partisan politics; then, a victim of it. In 2014, he was on the winning side with Kwankwaso, who rewarded him with the emirship for being a thorn in the flesh of Jonathan and the PDP; six years later, he was on the losing side with the current governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, who deposed him for being a thorn in his flesh!

Sadly, Nigeria’s traditional institutions have been deeply politicised and debased. Politicians run to traditional rulers for support during elections but, in power, treat them as mere “public officers” who can easily be dethroned. For instance, Ganduje deposed Sanusi for “disrespecting the office of the governor”. How philistine! Truth is, although God allowed Emir Sanusi’s dethronement, it wasn’t His will but the act of one man: Ganduje. But Sanusi is a highly-intelligent global citizen: the world is now his oyster!

VANGUARD