Tribute to Ado Bayero

The whole town was at the aerodrome that cold October morning to welcome the famous, former monarch who had come to take-up residence with the. His arrival changed the religious atmosphere of the town, and within as short time, Azare, already a haven of the Tijjaniya Order, had become one vast Zawiyya and for the […]

The whole town was at the aerodrome that cold October morning to welcome the famous, former monarch who had come to take-up residence with the. His arrival changed the religious atmosphere of the town, and within as short time, Azare, already a haven of the Tijjaniya Order, had become one vast Zawiyya and for the next 18 years, the deposed Emir would pass his days, quietly studying, in company of his courtiers, visiting scholars and students.
Meanwhile, barely six months after his deposition, his successor died and a new person was chose to replace him. The choice, Alhaji Ado Bayero had just come home from Switzerland, where he had gone from Senegal to learn French, to mourn his father and condole his kin when he was surprised by the news of his selection right at the airport. He was turbaned the 13th Emir of Kano on October 22, 1963.
Yet even as a diplomat sitting in Nigeria’s embassy in faraway Dakar, Alhaji Ado Bayero was, in a less domineering way than Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi, the uncrowned Emir of Kano—a veritable monarch-in-waiting, very much as Narambada said of others:
Ai mai Sarki ba fadi shi kai ba,
Da ka gashi kai ba ka tambaya;
Wada duk ka kaiwa gidanga ka kai.
Ubangijin Shamaki Sadauki,
Na Yari tattaki masu ja ma.
 This roughly translates as: “The anointed blue-blood would-be-king is stately and striking—and will always out. And you have nothing more to prove. [Sarki] come down hard on the recalcitrant.”
 But he came down on no one, and, though regal, he led with simplicity and kindness. And after the demise of Sultan Abubakar III, who led with wisdom, with humor and with uncommon farsightedness, and for whom simplicity became the staff of true greatness and his integrity compensated for lack of wealth and his worldly wisdom compensated for lack of scholarship; it could be said that no monarch in Nigeria came close to Alhaji Ado Bayero in the quantum of authority and influence he commanded, most of which, out of modesty, he never really wielded.
 He led in the glitter and stateliness of court splendor. Shehu el-Amin el-Kanemi of Borno might have held court that in patronage to learning might have approximated the period of the caliphs of the Abbasiyya court, and was ahead of any in the Sokoto Caliphate. Emir Yahaya of Gwandu might have agonised over issues of justice more than any leader since Sheikh Abdullahi Dan Fodio. Emir Ja’afaru Dan Isyaku of Zazzau—the great Mallam—might have had greater erudition in Islam and a more acute sense of communal mission and more perceptive presence of mind than all his contemporary monarchs in the North.
Etsu Umaru Sanda Ndayako, that embodiment of modern Nupe ethos, a man of commanding royal presence and a leader of great personal accomplishment, might have had a more organized and better administered court bureaucracy than all of them. But none of them held court that boasted greater pomp, pageantry and prestige or had a more elaborate protocol, or led his people with greater dignity and grace or personally exuded greater royal charisma than Alhaji Ado Bayero.
Ado Bayero was without doubt a man of peace who, within his half-century on the throne, presided over the social and cultural transformation of the people of Kano, and saw to the evolution of Kano metropolis from a dowdy provincial city of less than 200,000 people with its unpretentious scholars and God-fearing merchants, to a bustling multicultural metropolitan centre of commerce and learning with almost 3 million people—at a period when the simplicity and communality of the past was getting lost in the anonymity of its urban cosmopolitanism, swallowed by the cold indifference of the architecture of its urban jungle and the new cut-throat individualism of new primitive capitalism.
It became famous as a city of Sufis and scholars, noted as the abode of merchants and monarchs, and notorious as the haven of daba, wanki and damfara. The Emir was able to work with all—as a patron to the first, as friend and counselor to the second, and as a scourge of the third.
Because of the prominence of Kano among the cities of the Caliphate, the Emir’s court in that ancient city has, from the beginning of the caliphal enterprise, been the most regal with a glory that has not faded over the years, and the aura of an exterior majesty that has remained unaffected by a series of humbling reforms.
He was no stranger to humiliation, having suffered it under the governorship of Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, when he was queried; and during the Buhari administration, when he was sanctioned for a trip to Israel. But nothing came near what happened to him in his last days over the appointment of Wazirin Kano. It was indeed a pity that Alhaji Ado Bayero would depart the world under such circumstance—in such great grief: the legitimate exercise of his legal authority had been challenged and his action reversed in such a humiliating manner.
Even though Kwankwaso may be the best governor in the country today, not for what can be seen, though even if only for that he will still have been; but for what can’t be seen of what he has done to human capital and socio-economic infrastructure in Kano and what he is doing to change people’s attitude. Still, it is not for him to choose a Waziri for Kano; and even though the Emir’s choice has itself broken protocol without good reason, and may not be the most popular or most appropriate as people in Kano say, there should be a better way to right a wrong.
And even though a law exists that gives the governor the power to choose or the right to interfere with or approve, the choice, it is a bad law that should be rescinded. No authority should surpass that of the kingmakers in all traditional matters.
Indeed, before colonialism, on this question of the choice of Emir’s, the decision of kingmakers was final. It was the fear of the colonial authorities that left on their own, kingmakers might select an anti-colonial insurrectionist who will see to their doom. But colonialists had no right just as the governor or even the Emir hasn’t any right to reserve the power to approve or disapprove of our culture and customs.
All these administrative disasters are a result of the local government reforms, but this nation is taking its time to accept that the so-called reforms have failed. They failed, not in their intent or raise d’être but in their naïve assumptions and incompetent implementation. Thus, almost forty years after the last reform, there is no local government in the North today that is not much smaller and worse administered in every aspect—peace and security, maintenance of law and order, educational development, administrative excellence and timely collection of revenues—than its predecessor-Native Authority.
But here are some people who will not tolerate or allow a free and fair election having the temerity to question and disparage hereditary rule.  While this is no defence for heredity as basis for right to rule, the royals can at least say their forefathers founded the polity; but what have the ancestors of riggers founded?
Obviously, the reforms have failed and we need another reform to deliver the emirate system from the dunderheadedness of local government administration and the abuse, impunity of gubernatorial power. It is a pity Ado Bayero left before the next set of reforms.
Towards the end of his life, Ado Bayero devoted his time and energies to Islamic educational and cultural issues; and towards the end of his life, he was to devote all his energies to Islamic causes-mosque building and launchings, construction of madrasah, attendance of tasfir gatherings, gracing occasions of Qu’ranic recitation competitions.  It was in fact on his way back to the palace from one such event that he was way laid by suspected Boko Haram members and only escaped death by the whiskers.
A monarch of powerful presence, Alhaji Ado Bayero was, no doubt, helped by that regal taciturnity which he raised to an oft-copied, much-mimicked but ultimately inimitable courtly art; and, to the end of his life, he remained the most authentic representative and chief exponent of Hausa-Fulani tradition. He died in service to his people and faith, an icon in whose acts and cultural trend-setting the traditional institution found its purpose and affirmed its cultural essence. May his soul rest in peace.