By Ahmed Yahaya-Joe
“That owing to the unscrupulous and vicious system of administration by the family compact rulers and which has been established and fully supported by the British imperialist government, there is today in our society an antagonism of interest, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between the members of the vicious circle of Native Administration on the one hand and the ordinary Talakawa on the other hand.”
What has fundamentally changed since 8 August 1950 when the Northern Elements Progressives Union (NEPU) first attempted to rescue the North from itself?
“That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the Talakawa from the domination of the privileged few and by the reform of the present autocratic political institutions.”
What have we abolished in the intervening period 74 years and still counting?
The truth is that the North’s consistent lack of any meaningful development is being sustained by an enabling environment the Sawaba Declaration of NEPU has always warned us about.
Anyway;
“The question is not if history will repeat itself in the future. It is if history is already repeating itself as we live.”
The immediate foregoing quote is how the man formerly known as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi concluded his rebuttal to Malam Garba Shehu’s rejoinder to the future monarch’s highly controversial article entitled “The Fulani Factor in Nigerian Politics” published in Weekly Trust newspaper edition of June 30, 2000.
The future Presidential Media aide had titled his rejoinder “Sanusi’s Racist Rubbish” published in the Weekly Trust newspaper edition of 7 July 2000 where he put it in his own words;
“I came away with the feeling that the writer wanted to do one of two things: to either be ridiculous or to insult all of us who are not Fulani with some racist crap.”
Garba Shehu refrained further from directly engaging then Dan Majen Kano till 20 years later tangentially;
“President Buhari commends the people of Kano for keeping calm in the past few days of the dethronement announcement.
He prays that the will of Allah will be done at all times and that the emirate/state and its people continue to experience progress irrespective of who is on the throne.”
Before SLS engaged Malam Garba Shehu more than 2 decades ago he had wrestled with Okey Ndibe whose “Sanusi’s ethnic fictions “had provoked the onetime apex banker’s “The Fulani: Without apology”
Another of his must-read is “The Igbo Factor and the Reasonable Limits of Retribution”, where Sanusi writes;
“The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have conspired to keep the Igbo out of the scheme of things.”
Meanwhile, in his “The Yoruba Factor and Area-Boy Politics”, Sanusi maintains;
“(The South West) has shown itself over the years to be incapable of rising above narrow tribal interests and reciprocating goodwill from other sections of the country by treating other groups with respect. Practically every crisis in Nigeria since independence has its roots in this attitude.”
What “racist crap” was Malam Garba Shehu referring to 24 years ago?
Since the windmill of the gods grinds slowly, how well do we as Nigerians in general really understand the dynamics in Kano?
How do those “who are not Fulani” according to Malam Garba Shehu fit into the fray?
On 12 February 2024 yours truly posted what I entitled;
Kano’s Game of Thrones Between Empty Bookshelves and Great Expectations I & II
I did so in my reaction to the political moves to reinstall Sanusi that started playing out at the Kano State House of Assembly on 5 February 2024 less than a month after Governor Abba Yusuf dodged a legal bullet at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The attached pictures accompanied the post which I hereby re-post unedited.
Enjoy.
