RE: POT BLACKER THAN KETTLE

Last week’s piece on ‘Pot Calling Kettle Black’ elicited many responses. Today, we present a few of them. YUSUF MUHAMMAD ANAS ([email protected]): Your ‘Pot and Kettle’ is fascinating. Good to know that you are still there for us – we the voiceless, pathetic and contemptible Sons and Daughters of Kano. ‘Allah saka ma da Gidan […]

Last week’s piece on ‘Pot Calling Kettle Black’ elicited many responses. Today, we present a few of them.

YUSUF MUHAMMAD ANAS ([email protected]): Your ‘Pot and Kettle’ is fascinating. Good to know that you are still there for us – we the voiceless, pathetic and contemptible Sons and Daughters of Kano. ‘Allah saka ma da Gidan Aljannah.’ His Excellency the Governor should know that our history is our pride, and it is our only stepladder to greatness. Kano Emirate is beyond the Emir and the Legislature, and beyond even a Governor. It is but our antique pride of more than 1,000 years. For that to be ruined for a political squabble is, to say the least, very pedestrian! Your Excellency you are too big for that, considering your qualifications and experience in leadership.  Don’t mind your yes-people who sing to your ear that whatever you do is right – they do that just for them to fill the tummies and pockets. Don’t allow them ruin what remains in your political career. Why not conduct an opinion survey to find out how much Kano people love this your decision (or otherwise)? Remember the famous ‘inconclusive election’. Kano people have a lot of ‘tawakkali’ in Allah and that’s why they could take what happened in the spirit of ‘Allah sa haka ya fi alheri’. We are really shocked that this is the best you can reward us with during this Ramadan, the month that teaches patience, forgiveness, love and care. You cannot punish all of us for the perceived fault of one. The damage may have been done but it’s not too late to revert to status quo as ordered by courts of competent jurisdiction. The same courts that stopped your own investigation for a perceived misdemeanour. Sir, don’t think that the absence of people on the streets to protest this perceived injustice is a sign of support for you; it’s just a manifestation of the ‘tawakkali’ I alluded to earlier. We pray that Allah will bring respite and sauki and maganin masifa. O Allah forgive us (Allah mun tuba!)

 

ABBATI GUMEL ([email protected]): Thank you very much for “Pot Calling Kettle Black.” What made me laugh more was the paragraph on “Powerful Powerless Courts.” I agree entirely that the Dollar Videos investigation by the Kano State House of Assembly gave way to the Powerful Court which asked the legislators to set aside the issue. They complied and acted accordingly. However, the reverse was the case when they were asked by a Powerless Court to stop the proceedings in the creation of new emirates. In between the two instances, there emerged what is known as “impunity”, which has always been a danger to our democratic process. Those in power make laws for the country; the Courts then interpret same; yet the same people in power ignore the rulings by the same courts of the same laws. Therefore our laws have become meaningless, null and void, and of no effect. It should be known to all and sundry that ignoring provisions of the laws of the land breeds crimes and promotes insecurity. We should equally not allow sentiments to dominate our thinking that laws are made to favour one group of people and just to punish the powerless in the society.

 

MUHAMMAD SANI ([email protected]): You have said everything and I hope the ‘Pot’ will be opportune to go through what is being discussed on your page and elsewhere and correct itself by reversing this unpopular decision against the ‘Kettle’. The action is seriously annoying and doubly embarrassing that someone who is so accused with such a Titanic evidence as in those videos will now turn around and blame someone for corruption! Kai! This is just too audacious! Politicians should remember that four years are like four seconds, and they will come and pass as they have passed for others in the past.

 

MUHAMMAD YAHUZA ([email protected]): Many thanks for ‘Pot Blacker Than Kettle.’ As usual, very incisive and satirical. I am not from Kano, but somehow always feel at home when I visit or pass through to ‘My Own Kano’ just two and a half hours away to the north east of your ancient city. I respected and revered the late Ado Bayero because he was “Sarauta” personified. When he lived, he saw and refused to see; he heard and refused to hear. Every Hausa-speaking Northerner saw Ado Bayero as a model of what Sarauta represented. You didn’t have to be a ‘Bakano’ before you felt assured that the gentleman Emir represented you. Times have really changed. Unfortunately too, heirs to the thrones of our ancestors (and those who appoint people to such thrones) have also changed. Emir Sanusi should realise this more than anyone else. The people who appointed him cannot suffer his constant comments about the economy, politics and society because they think and believe they are the Alphas and Omegas of everything. The Emir should also realise that most – if not all – of these governors are NOT like President Buhari who can see and refuse to see and hear and refuse to hear. Now to the “Khadimul Islam” – in saner societies, what we saw in that video is enough to flush someone into political oblivion. But this is Northern Nigeria where anything goes. No governor in the South will survive politically from what we saw in that video. This balkanisation of Kano Emirate was done in anger and haste. Otherwise how can one effect punishment and then come back to issue a query! This is against the principle of fair hearing. And the apparent lack of public support for the balkanisation points to the fact the decision will have to be reviewed in such a way that both the Emir and KNSG will not lose face. Allah Ya kyauta.

 

FINALLY, IN DEALING WITH POLITICIANS, IT’S APT TO REMEMBER THIS STORY ABOUT LATE EMIR ADO BAYERO: “After the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election by Military President Ibrahim Babangida, the then junta came under so much pressure from civil society and foreign governments that it decided to use traditional rulers to douse the tension. The Emirs, Obas and Obis were assembled in Abuja. The late Oni of Ife was asked by the military to address the media. Before the Oni could start, his close friend and confidante, late Emir Ado Bayero, who was seated close by, whispered into Ife monarch’s ear cautioning him not to speak – that he should allow the military to handle the situation themselves (the classical case of the Hausa saying ‘Kowa ya kwanto kura shi ya san yadda zai sake daure ta’). However, the Oni assured his friend – Kano Emir – that he would speak and it would be alright. The Oni then proceeded to speak. By the time he returned to Lagos on his way back to Ile Ife, all hell had broken loose. He had instantly become a persona non grata of sorts among the Yoruba, and an object of ridicule and derision among masses who wanted the reinstatement of June 12. They were spitting at his convoy, the most demeaning humiliation of a leader, accusing him of selling out the June 12 struggle. The Oni was later to call the late Emir lamenting that how he wished he had listened to his friend’s warning!”

May Allah hasten the positive denouement of this vexatious matter.