Northern Nigeria: Of Egotistic Leaders and Resentful Followers, By Umar Yakubu
POLITICS DIGEST – His Royal Highness, Muhammadu Sanusi II has been deposed and was initially banished to Nassarawa State. Within three days, he effectively used the legal instrument to regain his freedom and move to Lagos to be with his family. All things being equal, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje should be in power till 2023. After then, he may run for the Senate or seek a political appointment. Both would have moved on with their lives.
But in retrospect, it’s essential to understand how our leaders think when they represent us or make decisions on our behalf. Currently, the Kano State government has given its reasons for the removal of Sanusi. The former emir has remained silent, and, may or may never speak about the matter. I’d like to however comment on the report of the General Abdulsalami Abubakar-led committee, which apparently undertook the task of seeking to resolve and reconcile the principal actors in this sordid affair. I intend to evaluate the now-released committee report, considering the surrounding circumstances of the deposition, which is now a fait accompli.
The report is 28 pages. In summary, the team met with the president to seek his blessings for their mission as peace-makers, however the president’s response was not that of the father of a nation. Thereafter they met with His Highness Muhammadu Sanusi II, then with Governor Ganduje. After both parties were heard, a tripartite meeting was convened to amicably resolve the issues involved. Out of a total of 13 recommendations, eight were within the purview of the governor and the remaining five in the domain of the (then) emir’s responsibility. However, the emir was deposed within a month of the conclusion of their assignment in February 2020. In the intervening period, the governor did not comply with even one of the recommendations. But the (then) emir, on the other hand, defaulted on only one of the recommendations, as the State government reported that he failed to attend meetings, and hence was guilty of an ‘act of insubordination’. All the other frivolous charges of the state on the emir just fizzled away because they probably couldn’t prove anything. It is unclear if the offence of not attending meetings was before the reconciliatory effort or afterwards, as this is best known only to the key actors.
From the content of the report, it was evident that the governor had already made up his mind on what to do to the emir, and his ego was in total control. Historically, governors have deposed traditional leaders over matters that diplomacy could have resolved. Even, as the (then) emir had equally dismissed title holders earlier on, over insubordination. The governor’s team have since struggled to convince many bewildered onlookers that the action carried out was in good faith. However, through a careful assessment of the General Abdulsalami report, and given the hurried execution of the dethronement process by the government – virtually undermining and rubbishing the reconciliation effort, as well as the personalities who threw their weights behind this – it is difficult to ascertain that the decision to remove the emir was in the interest of the people, for H.R.H. Sanusi did nothing wrong but say some truth to power, both in Kano and Abuja. What stands out as an ugly sore thumb in all the avoidable drama, is that egos had been bruised and no apologies were going to be accepted.
Well, I make bold to say that we have a problem, and a huge one at that. And by we, I mean every single one of us – the elites or otherwise – from the Sahel states of Northern Nigeria. Let us for a moment forget about H.H. Muhammadu Sanusi II. We should stop and reflect on the past 30 odd years. To start with, there is no political direction from the top. The elected ones are mainly driven by power, money and ego and with rare exceptions, they hardly seek or accept constructive advice from any quarter. For well over two decades now, there has been a huge yawning gap of and for political leadership in the North. President Buhari regularly pulls 12 million votes from the region but it is fiercely debateable if this even makes him the political leader of the North. In the words of Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Gumi, most of the 12 million voters are mostly poor Northerners who want to see the rich come down to their level of hopelessness. They adore Buhari, but it is most probably not because they think he can deliver. They are simply and justifiably angry at the entire wasteful generation of selfish, corrupt and inept regional leaders, whose pretensions to leadership only serve to dish out successive harm to them and their societies. They thus nostalgically look to Buhari as one person who (based on his past military record) would flog these ego-trippers into the line of disciplined conduct and genuine, selfless public service, and hopefully rescue the majority from their lives of wanton squalor.
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As it is today, which political leader can give direction on the basis of a concrete plan to salvage the North? The best I have seen till date has been through the work of Dr. Bugaje at The Arewa Research and Development Project. Otherwise, the bulk of our leaders in the region are comfortable just engaging in idle political talk. They preoccupy themselves, day and night, week after week, ad nauseam, with strategising on how to grab political power, principally because it opens up the floodgate for the access to unearned resources, the bulk of which goes to fund their unbridled personal and family interests. That’s why sections of the country view us as addicts to the public sector.
Next are the traditional institutions which, for several reasons, are being disrespected. They have their shortcomings, no doubt, but I opine that they remain the most viable pillars for forging harmony and peace, security monitoring and first-step social malaise prevention, tolerance, integration, community cohesion and development. Our traditional rulers are losing their dignity mainly due to how they are being manipulated to become involved with unscrupulous politicians. No matter how hard some try to remain neutral, politicians will always drag them to the trenches and ultimately ascribe some blame to them, hence the apparent and unfortunate dwindling of the prestige of these institutions. But even at that, it is inconceivable to see such disrespect meted out to the Alaafin of Oyo or Oba of Lagos? It’s not even dreamt of. It’s important, though, to acknowledge the efforts of the current Sultan of Sokoto, but you can’t match him with, say, Sultan Abubakar III in terms of how (due to the times back then) he was respected and listened to. Alhaji Shehu Shagari, as president, would naturally bow to him out of respect for the institution he led. Today, many contemporary traditional leaders would bow to money bags and politicians, thereby ridiculing the otherwise historically revered, respected and respectable institutions that they lead. There is no gainsaying that we are in critical times; we desperately need to preserve our traditional institutions and to restore and sustain their dignity and esteem. They are currently our best option, when reckoned with the calamity that pretends to political leadership in northern Nigeria.
On another level, the ones that seem to suffer the most are the Islamic religious leaders. Amongst them, there is no leadership, no co-operation, no harmony. Adherents only listen to them in terms of the rituals of the acts of worship, such as prayers and fasting. There is hardly any religious leader in Northern Nigeria, save maybe Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, who is known to have the wherewithal to effectively put a halt to the eruption of a riot, or any other similar social disorder. There are several countries in which religious leaders must be duly consulted before any political action is taken. Why? They command a lot of respect. How will our region develop if we don’t listen to our spiritual leaders, even though we are the most religious country on earth?
That’s for the leaders.
We, the followers are equally culpable, or perhaps worse. We are theologically trained to pray for our political, traditional and spiritual leaders; to support them and ensure that they do the right thing in terms of worldly affairs. To summarise the attitude of most followers, I will again refer to a comment by Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Gumi in which he explained why he thinks the North can never develop. In summary, he inferred that once a northerner attains political, traditional, religious leadership, or some affluence, the first remark by many observers is to recklessly attribute this to necromancy and sorcery! If that doesn’t hang, then it must be homosexuality or lesbianism. If that fails, then it must be adultery; or, no, the relationship with Jews. At all costs, something negative and untoward must be ascribed to explain or situate the ascendance of an individual to a position of influence, whether in the public or private sectors, or in the traditional leadership realm.
I recall how around 2016 or so when the social media was littered with bile, as Dr. Pantami was to be appointed the director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). I had never heard of him until then. And I decided to do a little research about his academic and professional background. He had a superb CV, which made me wonder what all the negativity pertaining to him was about, and where this wascoming from. Northern bloggers were silently endorsing the spread of fake news coming from the South, which was accusing the regime of lop-sided appointments. Apparently, the gentleman has been an Islamic preacher, an academic, IT professional and a small-scale businessman. Like Thomas Fuller stated, “nothing sharpens sight like envy.” They kept digging this gentleman’s past, only to find nothing. There are dozens of similar cases in which competent and qualified people have been dragged down. Ironically, sometimes it is even the Palace or religious institutions that propel the winds of jealousy and envy.
Governor Ganduje has the executive power to remove any of his appointees, if he feels the need for this. Others before him have done so and many may do more and even worse later on. But we should not delude ourselves that much can be achieved with ego-driven leaders and the utterly cancerous followership in the North. We can do better, much better, by utilising brilliant and radical minds like H.H. Muhammadu Sanusi II to shape a genuine, people-focused reform process based on promoting the traditional, religious, social and economic development and order of the North, for our own good. Let us commit to halting our visibly rapid descent into backwardness in the North.
Umar Yakubu is with the Center for Fiscal Transparency and Financial Crimes Prevention. Twitter: @umaryakubu
