By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Governor Abdullahi “Gandollar” Ganduje is no doubt a contemptibly philistine monster of avarice and debauchery who dethroned Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Emir of Kano because he couldn’t stomach the former emir’s disapproval of the electoral fraud that brought him to power.

There is also no doubt that Sanusi’s unrelenting public censures of the rotten, if time-honored, cultural quiddities of the Muslim North discomfited many people who are invested in the status quo, and this became one of the convenient bases for his ouster.

But Sanusi isn’t nearly the victim he has been cracked up to be by his admirers and defenders. First, he rode to the Kano emirship in 2014 on the crest of a wave of emotions stirred by partisan politics and came down from it the same way.

Even though he wasn’t initially on the shortlist of Kano’s kingmakers, APC's Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso (who is now in PDP) made Sanusi emir in 2014 to spite PDP’s President Goodluck Jonathan and shield Sanusi from the consequences of his unmasking of multi-billion-dollar corruption at the NNPC. Apart from his unceremonious removal as CBN governor for his whistle blowing, he was going to face other untoward retributions from the Jonathan administration, but his appointment as emir put paid to it.

Now, Sanusi lost his emirship to the same partisan politics that got it for him in the first place. In an ironic twist, he was made emir by an APC government for making privileged revelations that disadvantaged a PDP government, and was removed as an emir by an APC government for his overt and covert acts that could have benefited the PDP in 2019.

In other words, Sanusi’s emirship was molded in the crucible of partisan politics and was dissolved in it.

Nonetheless, Sanusi, given his intellectual sophistication and pretenses to being an advocate of egalitarianism, had no business being an emir. Monarchy is way past its sell-by date not just in Nigeria but everywhere. It’s an anachronistic, vestigial remnant of a primitive past that invests authority on people by mere accident of heredity. Any authority that is inherited and not earned, in my opinion, is beneath contempt.

Emirship isn’t only a primeval anomaly in a modern world, it is, in fact, un-Islamic. In Islam, leadership is derived from knowledge and the consensus of consultative assemblies of communities called the Shura, not from heredity.

Monarchies in the Muslim North, which have constituted themselves into parasitic, decadent drains on the society but which pretend to be Islamic, are grotesque perversions of the religion they purport to represent. Anyone, not least one who makes pious noises about equality, that is denied the unfair privileges of monarchy is no victim.

Most importantly, though, Sanusi embodies a jarring disconnect between high-minded ideals and lived reality. He rails against child marriage in public but married a teenager upon becoming an emir. When the late Pius Adesanmi called him out, he told him to “grow a brain.” He suddenly became the patron saint of conservative Muslim cultural values.

He expended considerable intellectual energies critiquing polygamy among poor Muslim men, but he is married to four wives. His defense, of course, would be that he can afford it, and poor Muslim men can’t. Fair enough. But transaction-oriented reformists lead by example.

Fidel Castro, for example, stopped smoking when he campaigned against it. It would be nice to say to poor, polygamous Muslim men, “Why are you, a poor man, married to four wives when Sanusi, a wealthy man and an emir, is married to just one wife?”

That would have had a much higher impact than his preachments. In spite of their moral failings, Buhari, Abba Kyari, and Mamman Daura would be much more effective campaigners against disabling polygamy by poor Muslim men than Sanusi can ever be because they are monogamists even when they can afford to marry four wives.

This is a legitimate critique since Sanusi has a choice to not call out poor Muslim men who marry more wives than they can afford since polygamy is animated by libidinal greed, which is insensitive to financial means.

Sanusi habitually fulminates against the enormous and inexorably escalating poverty in the north, but even though he is an immensely affluent person, he has not instituted any systematic mechanism to tackle the scourge of poverty in the region in his own little way.

Instead, he spends hundreds of billions of naira to decorate the emir’s palace, buy exotic horses, and luxuriate in opulent sartorial regality.

And, although, he exposed humongous corruption during Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and dollar racketeering during Buhari’s regime, he is himself an indefensibly corrupt and profligate person. In two well-researched investigative pieces in 2017, Daily Nigeria’s Jaafar Jaafar chronicled Sanusi’s mind-boggling corruption as emir of Kano, which apparently didn’t abate until he was dethroned.

Sanusi was ostensibly a Marxist when he studied economics at ABU, which explains why he exhibits flashes of radicalism in his public oratory, but he is, in reality, an out-of-touch, unfeeling, feudal, neoliberal elitist who is contemptuous, and insensitive to the suffering, of poor people.

He supported Jonathan’s petrol price hike in 2012 and even wondered why poor people were protesting since they had no cars, and generators, according to him, were powered by diesel, not petrol!

When his attention was brought to the fact that only “subsidized” and privileged “big men” like him use diesel-powered generators, he backed down and apologized. But I found it remarkably telling that until 2012 Sanusi had no clue that the majority of Nigerians used petrol-powered generators to get electricity.

In a September 1, 2012 column titled, "Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s Unwanted 5000 Naira Notes," I noted that Sanusi was "one of the most insensitive, out-of-touch bureaucrats to ever walk Nigeria’s corridors of power."

Again, in my December 10, 2016 article titled, "Dangerous Fine Print in Emir Sanusi's Prescription for Buhari," I wrote: "If you are a poor or economically insecure middle-class person who is writhing in pain amid this economic downturn, don’t be deceived into thinking that Emir Sanusi is on your side. He is not. His disagreements with Buhari have nothing to do with you or your plight. If he has his way, you would be dead by now because the IMF/World Bank neoliberal theology he evangelizes has no care for poor, vulnerable people."

On April 6, 2017, I wrote a Facebook status update that anticipated Sanusi’s dethronement and predicted that he might be president after his dethronement. I wrote:

“Did you pick up on the cryptic but devastating critique of Kano State Governor Ganduje’s government in Emir Sanusi’s wildly trending Kaduna speech? That’s gotta hurt. Remember that the power to appoint and dethrone traditional rulers rests exclusively with state governors. Now, pissing off the federal government AND the state government AND an entire region’s conservative cultural elites with bitter, uncomfortable truth-telling is a lethally combustible mix.

“I make no pretenses to possessing oracular powers (because I don't), but I predict that, like his grandfather, Emir Sanusi II will be deposed. But, unlike his grandfather, he may end up becoming Nigeria’s president after his dethronement. Kano’s loss would then be Nigeria’s gain which, in a strangely circuitous way, would also be Kano’s gain since Kano is part of Nigeria.

“Sanusi shouldn’t be Kano’s emir; he should be Nigeria’s president. I have strong disagreements with the neoliberal orthodoxy he subscribes to, but it would be nice to have a truly informed and educated man as president for once.”

Now, do I still want Sanusi to be Nigeria’s president? I am not too sure anymore. First, I doubt that the forces that got him out of the throne would allow him to become president, but should he decide to run for president in 2023, people who will vote for him should realize that he is neither a saint nor a victim.

https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2020/03/ganduje-is-monster-but-sanusi-is-not.html?m=1#.XmxOkVRFQxM.twitter

The game plan will unfold in our very eyes before 2023, God's willing.

The process that installed him got him uninstalled, no reason to be emotional.

The only reason for the outcry is the unfair incarceration without a valid court order. That has been fought and won, thanks to the effort of the media.

Governor Abdullahi “Gandollar” Ganduje is no doubt a contemptibly philistine monster of avarice and debauchery

Sanusi’s emirship was molded in the crucible of partisan politics and was dissolved in it.

Sanusi, given his intellectual sophistication and pretenses to being an advocate of egalitarianism, had no business being an emir

Most importantly, though, Sanusi embodies a jarring disconnect between high-minded ideals and lived reality. He rails against child marriage in public but married a teenager upon becoming an emir.

.

In short the corrupt and the hypocrite.

Summary pls

Lalasticlala.

Not sure I'm surprise

I cease to respect this writer since the day he wrote an article against Trump and the funny thing is that he is based in the USA a country Trump is taking to the promise land. All M U S L I M S are ingrate. He should come to Nigeria to write against Trump. Its a nice write up he wrote though.

Sanusi habitually fulminates against the enormous and inexorably escalating poverty in the north, but even though he is an immensely affluent person, he has not instituted any systematic mechanism to tackle the scourge of poverty in the region in his own little way.

: "If you are a poor or economically insecure middle-class person who is writhing in pain amid this economic downturn, don’t be deceived into thinking that Emir Sanusi is on your side. He is not. His disagreements with Buhari have nothing to do with you or your plight. If he has his way, you would be dead by now because the IMF/World Bank neoliberal theology he evangelizes has no care for poor, vulnerable people."

And some simpletons have started subtle campaign for him to contest 2023 presidential elections.

I'll rather vote for either a SW or SE candidate cos we've had enough of maladministration from northern leaders.

He's definitely not a victim and not a saint. I have read up a lot about this man since his travails, and I've come to realise he's no better than the people he condemns. He had ample opportunity to make a little change, but he didn't. Like the typical power mongering oligarch, he will not make any serious changes to the system or to the country as a whole

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Both Sanusi and Ganduje are hypocrites . Riding private jets upandan . also riding two rolls royce he claimed his friend bought him. abeg abeg. he could have used one of the car to take almajiri off the streets

In Nigeria, shut up or they try to shut you up.......


Don't be a elite/ruling class and criticise the elite/ruling class.....

Don't bite the finger, feeding you.......

dsame birds

How do people who don't watch football usually spend their weekends?

Ok

"pretenses to being an advocate of egalitarianism"

That's Sanusi in a nutshell

Very insightful and thought provoking writeup.
How some Nigerians will still read this and make dumb comments is beyond me. One day we will realize that the elites are playing us back and forth.

f

Lexusgs430:
In Nigeria, shut up or they try to shut you up.......


Don't be a elite/ruling class and criticise the elite/ruling class.....

Don't bite the finger, feeding you.......

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Oluwasaeon:
How do people who don't watch football usually spend their weekends?

Call your girlfriend, if you have none...... Book a Runzgal........

Upon all the wailing and support Sanusi received from IPOB on social media, one will have thought that the former emir will settle in Aba instead of Lagos the center of excellence.

cRobo:
I won't say a word

Me too.

Ofemmanu1:

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

What goes around......... Comes around.....

Lexusgs430:



Call your girlfriend, if you have none...... Book a Runzgal........

No girlfriend bossman. Runs girl

ednut1:
Both Sanusi and Ganduje are hypocrites

A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

Those peeps are pure basterrds of 1969.

Oluwasaeon:

No girlfriend bossman. Runs girl

They promise to give and keep good company........

backnbeta:
He's definitely not a victim and not a saint. I have read up a lot about this man since his travails, and I've come to realise he's no better than the people he condemns. He had ample opportunity to make a little change, but he didn't. Like the typical power mongering oligarch, he will not make any serious changes to the system or to the country as a whole

Many still 'gets carried away' by his queens English and purported intelligence though as CBN governor he's no match for Soludo.

And he's very likely being propped up for 2023 presidential election cos from ongoing permutations and SW opposition to a northern 2023 president the powers that be in the north will need to bring forth a cerebral candidate that'll be acceptable to southerners and being an economist too Sanusi fits those requirements and with an SE/SS VP they'll hope he'll get the needed support from the two regions which will in the north permutation should help checkmate Tinubu or any other Yoruba candidate.

Anyway na siddon and look I dey