Gov Kwankwaso alleges…‘FG, PDP instigated anti-Sanusi protest’

Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso yesterday has blamed the Federal Government and the ruling PDP for the violence that erupted after the appointment of Lamido Sanusi as the new emir of Kano on Sunday.Protesters set up bonfires on some streets of Kano and chanted anti-Sanusi slogans soon after the announcement of his appointment. This came […]

Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso yesterday has blamed the Federal Government and the ruling PDP for the violence that erupted after the appointment of Lamido Sanusi as the new emir of Kano on Sunday.
Protesters set up bonfires on some streets of Kano and chanted anti-Sanusi slogans soon after the announcement of his appointment. This came hours after the People’s Democratic Party had issued a statement congratulating Sanusi’s rival as having being appointed Kano emir.
Speaking in Abuja yesterday, Kwankwaso said interference by the Federal Government and the statement by the PDP instigated the negative reaction in Kano over Sanusi.
The governor, who narrated how the incident happened, said he asked the kingmakers to brief him on Saturday, a day after the death of Emir Ado Bayero.
“I decided to invite all the four kingmakers and sat down together with them and I asked them to brief me especially the Sakin Bai of Kano, who was the only one who participated in the selection of the late emir Ado Bayero,” he said.
“They briefed me and I asked them to go and consult and come back the following day. The following day, Sunday, they came back and told me their position, and of course when I asked them to go back and consult and come back and brief me, mischief started.
“Before they came on Sunday, I saw it on television and heard it on the radio that the PDP people, the Federal Government, decided to appoint a new emir, and that is what started all the confusion. And when my attention was called I quickly asked the commissioner of information to ask the radio stations and the TV to stop.”
Kwankwaso attributed what was happening Kano to the fact that he is not in the PDP.
He said a new emir was appointed in Gombe recently and no violence followed. Gombe State is controlled by the PDP.
Kwankwaso said he had expected President Goodluck Jonathan to call to inform him if there was anybody he was not comfortable with among those who applied to become emir, but said there was no such communication from the Presidency and he therefore assumed there was no problem.
He said 50 percent of the security details around him have been withdrawn, and that if anything happens to him, President Jonathan should be held responsible.
“I am of the opinion that the president we have today does not know where the power of the president starts and he does not know where it ends,” Kwankwaso said.
“There are certain things which the president cannot and are not within his jurisdictions. Some are too low that they are done by the state or the local governments. Some are purely for the state governments and some of course are for the Federal Government and I think the mistake that they made here is to leave us out.”
‘Evil that men do’
Since his appointment as emir on Sunday, Sanusi had been staying at the Government House where he continued to receive visitors.
Tradition requires the emir to relocate to the palace by now, but Kwankwaso said yesterday the police were preventing him from doing that, on the orders of the Federal Government.
“The Federal Government ordered for the palace to be sealed. The Federal Government ordered the reduction of security men at the Kano Government House,” he told the BBC Hausa radio.
Asked when the emir would be able to relocate, Kwankwaso said that would be when the police reopened the palace or when the Kano people themselves marched on the palace.
Earlier, the governor’s spokesman Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye also told Daily Trust in Kano that the police were ordered by the Federal Government to seal the palace in order to frustrate the new emir from relocating there.
“The emir is in Government House because the police have sealed off the palace and it was understood by the government that the order was given to them by the Federal Government. If they don’t open the palace, the people of Kano may be forced to find means to take their emir there,” he said.
But Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of zone 1, Kano, Alhaji Tambari Yabo, said they sealed the palace in order to protect it from hooligans.
He said, “Don’t mind them, we sealed the palace because of the information we received that hooligans were likely to enter there and cause havoc. If we allow that to happen which one will be more terrible?”
Also in a reaction, the Federal Government dismissed allegations that it instigated the anti-Sanusi protest and ordered the police to seal the emir’s palace.
Police Affairs Minister Abduljelili Adesiyan told Daily Trust in Abuja that it was unimaginable for anyone to assume that the Federal Government instigated the protests that trailed Sanusi’s appointment.
He said, “The evil that men do lives after them. If there is justification for anything that anybody does, there would be no need for protests. Let everybody search his conscience. President Jonathan will not order the police or anybody to do that. “If the people of Kano are not against their new emir, can Mr President bring people from the South-South to say go and protest in Kano? They are blackmailing the president. I want to assure you that President Jonathan will not do that. It is blackmail.”

kingmakers to brief him on Saturday, a day after the death of Emir Ado Bayero.
“I decided to invite all the four kingmakers and sat down together with them and I asked them to brief me especially the Sakin Bai of Kano, who was the only one who participated in the selection of the late emir Ado Bayero,” he said.
“They briefed me and I asked them to go and consult and come back the following day. The following day, Sunday, they came back and told me their position, and of course when I asked them to go back and consult and come back and brief me, mischief started.
“Before they came on Sunday, I saw it on television and heard it on the radio that the PDP people, the Federal Government, decided to appoint a new emir, and that is what started all the confusion. And when my attention was called I quickly asked the commissioner of information to ask the radio stations and the TV to stop.”
Kwankwaso attributed what was happening Kano to the fact that he is not in the PDP.
He said a new emir was appointed in Gombe recently and no violence followed. Gombe State is controlled by the PDP.
Kwankwaso said he had expected President Goodluck Jonathan to call to inform him if there was anybody he was not comfortable with among those who applied to become emir, but said there was no such communication from the Presidency and he therefore assumed there was no problem.
He said 50 percent of the security details around him have been withdrawn, and that if anything happens to him, President Jonathan should be held responsible.
“I am of the opinion that the president we have today does not know where the power of the president starts and he does not know where it ends,” Kwankwaso said.
“There are certain things which the president cannot and are not within his jurisdictions. Some are too low that they are done by the state or the local governments. Some are purely for the state governments and some of course are for the Federal Government and I think the mistake that they made here is to leave us out.”
‘Evil that men do’
Since his appointment as emir on Sunday, Sanusi had been staying at the Government House where he continued to receive visitors.
Tradition requires the emir to relocate to the palace by now, but Kwankwaso said yesterday the police were preventing him from doing that, on the orders of the Federal Government.
“The Federal Government ordered for the palace to be sealed. The Federal Government ordered the reduction of security men at the Kano Government House,” he told the BBC Hausa radio.
Asked when the emir would be able to relocate, Kwankwaso said that would be when the police reopened the palace or when the Kano people themselves marched on the palace.
Earlier, the governor’s spokesman Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye also told Daily Trust in Kano that the police were ordered by the Federal Government to seal the palace in order to frustrate the new emir from relocating there.
“The emir is in Government House because the police have sealed off the palace and it was understood by the government that the order was given to them by the Federal Government. If they don’t open the palace, the people of Kano may be forced to find means to take their emir there,” he said.
But Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of zone 1, Kano, Alhaji Tambari Yabo, said they sealed the palace in order to protect it from hooligans.
He said, “Don’t mind them, we sealed the palace because of the information we received that hooligans were likely to enter there and cause havoc. If we allow that to happen which one will be more terrible?”
Also in a reaction, the Federal Government dismissed allegations that it instigated the anti-Sanusi protest and ordered the police to seal the emir’s palace.
Police Affairs Minister Abduljelili Adesiyan told Daily Trust in Abuja that it was unimaginable for anyone to assume that the Federal Government instigated the protests that trailed Sanusi’s appointment.
He said, “The evil that men do lives after them. If there is justification for anything that anybody does, there would be no need for protests. Let everybody search his conscience. President Jonathan will not order the police or anybody to do that. “If the people of Kano are not against their new emir, can Mr President bring people from the South-South to say go and protest in Kano? They are blackmailing the president. I want to assure you that President Jonathan will not do that. It is blackmail.”