Is Sanusi ripe for Kano?

There is no country in the world where motorists drive against traffic in broad daylight without repercussion. Similarly, nowhere do you see law enforcement driving on the wrong side of the road, with no emergencies to attend to except their joyride on tax payers’ money. We are simply lawless. In our country, citizens dare the […]

There is no country in the world where motorists drive against traffic in broad daylight without repercussion. Similarly, nowhere do you see law enforcement driving on the wrong side of the road, with no emergencies to attend to except their joyride on tax payers’ money.
We are simply lawless. In our country, citizens dare the law just for the fun of it. People make public announcements that cause disaffection, even loss of lives and are ignored, shielded or rewarded. Those who steal billions from the public tills are shielded by the government while those who abduct children even reject pardon. It is all a tip of the iceberg. Nigeria, we hail thee.
Far removed from traffic is the new king on the bloc, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. I remember a few years ago when he became the number one banker of Nigeria, expectations were high that a redeemer had finally come to clear the Augean stable owing to his thorough and sharp mental agility which stood him out. I also remember his encounter with members of the National Assembly, where he threatened to drop the CBN job like a hot potato if it would make him only do government’s bidding as he was being grilled.
I also remember how he assured the senators of his passion for human rights and how he showed that he fully understood his brief as the peoples’ banker and he swore to protect the depositor from the sharks in our banks. At a point, Sanusi even sounded egregious, which impressed the nation but scared the senators.
However, few years down the line, Sanusi depicted a character that was far from princely; neither inspiring nor impressive.   When he stormed the nation with supposed figures of monies stolen from public coffers at the NNPC, there were serious defects in his come-uppance that many thought that the weight of his office had overwhelmed him.
Now don’t get me wrong, I had been a fan of SLS’s over a long time. I had loved his writings and most of all his braggadocio. I had enjoyed his stormy takes with the senate and I had hoped that he would turn things around at the CBN. Before he became a wolf-like colossus on the national scene, I had, when I lived abroad, also defended him against his transgressors even when I hardly knew him and he had on different occasions emailed me in appreciation. Behind the scenes, I had supported a group of professional northern women who thought that they needed a northern candidate to replace President Jonathan in 2015. SLS was one of their candidates, or indeed the candidate. This effort I am sure had not even left the drawing board before SLS began to act up. The idea was jettisoned in a blink.
Since his stand-offs with government, I had continued to brood over SLS, the folk-hero and his methods. At the risk of sounding like a hater, I bear no compunctions about my new position on the abilities and otherwise of his Royal Highness the new Emir of Kano. Again, at the risk of sounding like the opposition, I know for a fact that the selection of SLS as the emir of Kano is fraught with so many terrible questions. The process, to tell the truth was secretive, partisan, and sketchy and rushed. The People’s Democratic Party may have gone overboard to have crept in, themselves, with that pre-emptive announcement of a different successor to the throne, which they later denied but two wrongs we all know, do not make a right. And that is why the process does not inspire confidence.
Despite his knowledge and independent-minded bravado, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is stepping into one of the biggest shoes that anyone born after the fifties in northern Nigeria might have known. His job is cut out in such a way that he would be expected to mediate between men who are drowning in the stormy waters of politics, just as he would be expected to keep the balance between modernity and tradition in Kano, the north and beyond as the late Ado, as he was fondly called, had done. He must be the watchdog that Ado was and must bark as sharply when things are going wrong to introduce the equilibrium between public safety and the overall political shenanigans that shoved him into his new office. But if the past is a lesson for the future, one must ask if SLS is ready for his new shoes because Kano will only have Ado and better.
SLS may be popular now because of the mood of the north towards this government but he must not allow himself to be seen or even perceived as an emir of the few. Many are with him today not because Governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso dared the state just for the fun of it or because the government tried to persecute him, but because he is destined to take the throne at this inauspicious time; and how he handles the ladle is what in the end will count for his reign in Kano.