The big elephant has fallen

Yet, the death early yesterday of the redoubtable Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero still elicited shock in Kano State, all over the North and all over Nigeria. It also elicited an outpouring of grief at the passing of a man who had come to personify all the virtues that have made traditional rulership an […]

Yet, the death early yesterday of the redoubtable Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero still elicited shock in Kano State, all over the North and all over Nigeria. It also elicited an outpouring of grief at the passing of a man who had come to personify all the virtues that have made traditional rulership an enduring institution in Nigeria.
For one, Alhaji Ado Bayero was the emir for five full decades. He was appointed the Emir of Kano by the Northern Region Government of the Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello in 1963 following the death of Emir Muhammadu Inuwa after only six months on the throne. Alhaji Ado outlived the Premier and the First Republic. He outlived the rule of Military Governor of the North General Hassan Usman Katsina. He outlived what once looked like the interminable governorship of Police Commissioner Audu Bako. After General Gowon’s regime was overthrow in 1975, Alhaji Ado outlived two military governors of the Murtala/Obasanjo era. He then outlived three civilian governors of Kano in the Second Republic, outlived the Buhari-era governor, three military governors during the revolving door Babangida era, outlived the Third Republic civilian governor Kabiru Gaya and outlived three military administrators of the Abacha/Abdulsalami eras. In the Fourth Republic too, he had already seen the coming and going of two governors before Governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso’s return to Kano Government House in 2011.
Ado Bayero was famous for his majestic attire. His flowing robes and ostrich-feather shoes were universally recognised. Even better known was his biforked turban kaho biyu and his ancient traditional staff of office, the two-headed spear called tagwayen masu. He rode in majestic cars as well. I first saw Emir Ado Bayero at the Bayero University Campus in 1977; he arrived in a shiny black Rolls Royce.
There were his mysterious habits too. For a man who was Nigeria’s ambassador to Senegal prior to his appointment as emir, Alhaji Ado Bayero refrained from speaking in English in his palace. The numerous visitors to his palace could speak in English, which was not interpreted for the emir. But when it came time for him to respond, he always did so briefly, spoke slowly and deliberately, in Hausa, and he flashed a wan smile every now and then. His palace was teeming with courtiers in colourful robes. The Kano palace under Emir Ado also has the most elaborate protocol of any Northern palace. Locals tell alot of mysterious stories around it and around Alhaji Ado himself, stories mostly impossible to verify or to refute.
Alhaji Ado Bayero jealously guarded the Hausa ancestry and the Islamic roots of the Kano palace but he was also a cosmopolitan man who contracted some very close friendships across ethnic divides. He was a close friend of the Asaba-born lawyer and one time Minister of Justice Michael Agbamuche. He was a close friend of Chief Emeka Ojukwu; when Ojukwu returned from exile in 1982 he immediately went to Kano to visit the emir, and Emir Ado Bayero personally attended Ojukwu’s funeral in 2011 despite his advancing age and poor health. Another very close friend of his was the Oni of Ife, Okunade Sijuade Olubuse.
Alhaji Ado Bayero’s ability to remain atop the push and pull of the city of Kano, the boiling cauldron of northern politics, was the stuff of legend. It was no small miracle that anyone could sit atop Kano with its ancient merchant families, its army of small traders, its razor sharp politicians of both the conservative and the radical variety, its burgeoning Western-educated middle class, its millions of toiling workers and the city’s huge underclass. Not for nothing do traditionalists call Kano tumbin giwa, an elephant’s belly. Not only did Ado Bayero sit atop it, but he earned respect and appreciation from almost all its volatile segments.
Not everyone loved Alhaji Ado Bayero. In January last year, gunmen thought to belong to the Boko Haram sect ambushed the emir as he left a mosque in Kano. Although he escaped unscathed, his driver and three other aides were killed in the attack. The emir probably regarded Boko Haram to be the worst phenomenon of his reign; the only time this totally imperturbable man shed tears in public when President Goodluck Jonathan visited him after the devastating multiple bombs and shooting attacks in Kano in January 2012 that claimed nearly 200 lives.
Given that Alhaji Ado Bayero received an endless stream of visitors, it was noteworthy that he never made public gaffes. Even though he tiptoed across Kano’s volatile political scene with the stealth of a leopard, he still fell into trouble a few times with the state’s rulers. One notable episode was the occasion in 1981 when the Kano State Government of Governor Mohamed Abubakar Rimi issued him with a query for traveling to Zaria without seeking its permission. A riot broke out in the city as a result. Rimi’s Political Adviser, the fiery Dr. Bala Mohamed was killed by a mob in that riot.
In 1984, Alhaji Ado also fell into trouble with General Muhammadu Buhari’s military regime. At a time when Nigeria and most African countries had broken diplomatic relations with Israel in solidarity with OAU member Egypt, Israeli newspapers flashed pictures of the emir and his very close friend Oni of Ife Okunade Sijuade being received by the Israeli president. The Federal Government reacted harshly and restricted both men to their domains for six months. It also removed Ado as Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, a position to which he later returned and held until his death yesterday.
Emir Ado’s relation with the Abacha regime was also frosty. Even though he never spoke publicly against the regime or any of its controversial actions, he apparently cautioned it privately and at one point there were rumours that General Sani Abacha was planning to depose him. Caught in that tussle was Abacha’s principal private secretary Alhaji Sarki Makama, who was the Makaman Kano and district head of Wudil. He was sacked by Abacha for suspected double loyalties.
From what observers could see from afar, Alhaji Ado Bayero had especially warm ties with Governor Ibrahim Shekarau who ruled Kano in 2003-11. Their ties were so cordial that just before Shekarau’s tenure ended, the emir conferred on him the traditional title of Sardaunan Kano. The title did not previously exist in Kano but due to the fact that it was Sir Ahmadu Bello’s title, Sardauna is seen by all Northerners as a very big title wherever it is found. Partly as a result, the emir’s relations with Governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso have been frosty at best. There was a spat last year when the emir’s palace apparently told the state government that Alhaji Ado would no longer be able to ride horses to the Eid ground and also ride a horse to the Government House. However, when the emir rode a horse near his palace, the state government announced on the radio that “arrangements have been completed to receive him at the Government House tomorrow.” Never the one to stand up to political rulers, Alhaji Ado drove in a convoy of cars to the Government House.
The last spat he had with Kwankwaso’s government had to do with the appointment of a Wazirin Kano following the death last year of Sheikh Isa Waziri. The state government vehemently objected to the appointment of Sheikh Nasir Muhammad Nasir as Wazirin Kano and said its advice had been ignored. Three days ago, Alhaji Ado Bayero mandated the Emirate Council to meet and review the matter, though he said he himself was feeling unwell and could not attend the meeting. The council revoked Sheikh Nasir’s appointment. It looked at that time as if Alhaji Ado merely provided a convenient excuse to be away but his plea turned out to be true; he passed away two days later.
One of the greatest, most majestic, most sensible and most redoubtable of Northern emirs has just passed away. A mighty elephant has fallen. The void he leaves behind will be difficult to fill by any of the persons already lining up to succeed to this ancient throne, including two of Alhaji Ado Bayero’s sons.