A day for Sarauta

If this is done as an attempt at predicting the likely behaviour of the suspect group based on the psychology of its member, that may not be entirely inaccurate; but if this is done as a way of establishing the culpability and liability of His Highness, it is utterly wrong and it totally misses the […]

If this is done as an attempt at predicting the likely behaviour of the suspect group based on the psychology of its member, that may not be entirely inaccurate; but if this is done as a way of establishing the culpability and liability of His Highness, it is utterly wrong and it totally misses the point of his heroic act.
While many people have spoken in this vein, the comment made by Mohammed Haruna in his column on Wednesday [3/12/2014] provides a good point of departure. He quoted the Emir exhorting his listeners at the end of a special prayer session to defend themselves.
“‘People must stand resolutely. They should acquire what they can to protect themselves; and should not wait for soldiers to protect them,’” and then he continued, “If the Emir was quoted correctly, it was an unwise thing for him to have said because, given Boko Haram’s past response to such threats, it was like waving a red flag before a bull. … When the Emir of Kano called on Muslims to rise and defend themselves against Boko Haram, it was not only like waving a red flag before a bull. It was like asking people to help themselves to justice.
“Last Friday, the worshippers at the grand Mosque did just that when they overpowered the machine gun-wielding attackers and, instead of handing them over to the authorities, lynched them to death. That may have satisfied the public’s desire for instant justice but it also foreclosed any hope that the attackers could have helped to unearth those behind the attack.” And quite regrettable it is, but even more regrettable is the fact that if they are handed over to the authorities, they will probably be released without charge.
What His Highness said was no idle talk or mere fireside chat; it represented the essence of the function of leadership, which must be exercised regardless of the dangers involved. It certainly needed courage and the courage of conviction to accept to face the consequences of the many scenarios that might succeed making such a call, including this very unhelpful and mischievous suggestion that it was His Highness’ self defence counsel that prompted that attack. But, what if it was, anyway? Do these people mean that, because he feared retaliation on his person, his palace and the Central Mosque, he should keep quiet as people were being felled? Obviously, the call by His Highness couldn’t have been the cause of the attack; because Kano had been attacked several times even before His Highness became Emir and long before he made his call.
It also needed courage to accept to face the charge that had been made that he was advocating anarchy by urging people to take the law into their hands. First, which law will people be taking into their hands, anyway? When its enforcers and preservers took to their heels, they went way with the law. But if any of it had remained, the remainder had been taken up even before His Highness made his call. The saddest reminder and the best indication for this is the fact that it is hunters and Kashim Shettima’s Civilian JTF of Borno State that are fighting and liberating towns in the North. His Highness was, therefore, merely reiterating a reality that already existed solidly on the ground. So, His Highness couldn’t have been calling to anarchy; because if anarchy meant absence of government, order or control, why, this was what it had been in the North East for the past three years or so. His highness couldn’t therefore have called to what already existed before his call.
And clearly, an attack of this magnitude and sophistication would require surveillance and planning over the course of several more days than separated His Highness’ call and the execution of the attack. It couldn’t possibly have been conceived, planned and pulled off within the few days between the call and the blast.
The first law of nature is that of self-preser-vation: any one threatened—especially with death—will rise up to defend himself. And woe unto him who takes it, and dies lying down. Presumably therefore, even without the call by His Highness, everyone will seek to defend himself. The only thing—and, in the circumstances, it is the most important thing—that the call by His Highness has done is to be a restatement of the correctness of self defence as an action; and for the call to act as reassurance that those on whom people depend are there to defend them, which is the essence of true leadership.
The call to do the right thing, especially in such very desperate situations as the one in the North today, can never be wrong. This will never lead to anarchy; it will in fact only avert one. His Highness Muhammadu Sanusi II was effectively giving leadership in the abysmal vacuum that had developed. The nation should be grateful to him and no one should be allowed anyone to fault or rubbish the call he has made, because it is exactly what is required by the moment. In essence, that call is no ordinary statement: it is one that can only be made by those able to rise to the occasion. And they are always very few.
From what I have observed and heard, there has not been any action or saying by any leader of recent that has caught popular imagination in the North or elicited such public gratitude and sighs of relief in contradistinction to previous self-pity and despondency. Suddenly, people felt represented, protected and led; and they listened, which perhaps explained their decision to run no more; and they were able and ready to confront and apprehend the killers. And it was only after this call by the Emir that, in the spirit of better late than never, other prominent individuals and some organizations began calling on the people to rise and defend themselves.
Many people, including the venerable Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi have condemned the Kano bomb blast and killings, and called on the people to rise and defend themselves as enjoined by the Emir. General Ibrahim Babangida has also called for self-defence, describing it as a Jihad against Boko Haram sect members. He extended his support to the call by His Highness, saying he saw nothing wrong if people who were attacked prepared for self-defence. How much better, and infinitely more reassuring, it would have been for the people of the North if General Babangida had said this publicly at a press conference, with General TY Danjuma, General Muhammadu Buhari and General Abdulsalami Abubakar sitting at the high table.
Without meaning to do so, His Highness has exposed the paper tigritude of the power of the political and military classes and saved the day for Sarauta.  But it was just not the call to people that His Highness made; it was the leadership that he gave them and the uncommon courage that he displayed in the heat of the crisis. Immediately the plane carrying him landed at the Aminu Kano International Airport, His Highness made his way straight to the Central Mosque bomb blast site to see the horrendous tragedy. After the inspection, he went round the city’s hospitals to see and give his sympathies to the injured; and from the hospital, he went back to the blast site to lead Maghrib prayers, after which he gave the solemn pledge: “Far away is littleness from us. We shall never be intimidated!”
In the morning, His Highness was among the first to get into the queue for blood donation. And on seeing this, Kanawa in their hundreds dropped everything and queued up to donate blood, so much so that the authorities had to beg people to stop coming. In the afternoon, His Highness went back to see and give succour to the injured, and whenever he gave his sympathies, a courtier behind him would drop the royal sickness benefit; and the following day, the rich in Kano took their cue and went to hospitals donating money and giving all manner of help.
Even at the traditional level, the most important functions of leadership are: helping people interpret the meaning of events, aligning their group objectives and strategies, organising and coordinating communal activities, helping to build mutual trust between them, promoting justice and morality in society, seeking to develop and empower them, protecting them and, finally, acting as a symbol for their collective identity. No doubt, all of these roles are relevant to, and symptomatic of, what, a leadership should do; and by speaking the way he did and at the time he did, the Emir of Kano saved the day, not only for Sarauta but for all the classes of leadership in the North that are too frightened to speak. Allah Shi karama Sarki nasara da hakurin juriyar abinda ya faru.
And we have nothing to give to the people of Kano except our condolences over the painful, tragic death of such an unprecedented number of people [more than 500 dead], including all the leading Ulama, who had gathered as they used to do, to pray for the state and for the nation; and it was in their midst right inside the mosque that one of the suicide-bombers detonated his bombs. May their souls rest in peace.