One year of resourceful leadership in Kano

By Mohammed Isa Bilal

The 9th of March 2021 marked the one year anniversary of his Royal highness, Alhaji Aminu Abdullahi Ado Bayero on the throne of the most influential, populated, cosmopolitan and industrious city in Northern Nigeria.

It has been one year of peaceful, progressive and inter-cultural re-invention spearheaded by His highness Alhaji Aminu Abdullahi Ado Bayero the 15th Emir of Kano, in the Fulani caliphate dynasty.

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It has continued to emerge during the last one year that His Highness Aminu Abdullahi Ado Bayero has never relented in his strenuous but commendable effort towards entrenching the unity and harmony of all people in his domain, irrespective of primordial, centrifugal or social stratifications.

It is remarkable to note that since his ascension to the highly revered and esteemed throne, bequeathed by his forefathers, Emir Aminu Abdullahi Ado Bayero had imbibed and emulated one of the important virtues and reputation of his late father, his highness Alhaji Abdullahi Ado Bayero (may Allah accept him into Jannatul Firdaus) of being humble and a complete gentle – a royal personality, who always guarded the choice of his royal pronouncement and comments. Making statements only when it becomes necessary for him to do so, in the interest of his subjects.

Being the custodian of the people’s culture, values and agent of peaceful coexistence in the society, the royal father’s contributions to humanity are more felt than voiced.

He appreciated the decentralization or decapitation of the old Kano emirate council into four independent entities facilitated in good faith and in the interest and advancement of the entire Kanawa.

In his capacity as the chairman of Kano State Council of Chiefs, his incipient task was the establishment of cohesive avenues of synergy among the four existing new emirate councils. This was carried out by the emir basically for the promotion and effective realization of the core objectives and aims which the creation of the new emirates seeks to achieve. These are:

(i) To ensure the security of lives and properties of the inhabitants;

(ii) To ensure rapid development of the communities;

(iii) To accelerate development of more alternative urban cities so as to reduce the population explosion of Kano city;

(iv) To also mitigate rural urban migration and to ensure the development and equitable embedding of critical social amenities, in the newly created emirates.

(v) To drastically and effectively change the negative mind-set of the inhabitants inclinations of sticking to socio-cultural tendencies.

(vi) To change the narrative to socio-economic growth vis-a-vis the Almajiri menace and the apathy towards education in rural settings.

These are all what the creation of new emirates seeks to achieve, as envisaged by the Ganduje’s administration. In this regard, all the existing emirate councils are presently working in alliance to effectively achieve the above objectives in the overall interest of Kano State and its people.

Recently, at a time when the global community is confronted by the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were all witnesses to the effort of the emir in mobilizing and sensitizing the inhabitants of his domain.

The emir had personally sponsored the publishing and printing of leaflets and pamphlets which were massively distributed to people in and around Kano city, with the view of educating the population on non-pharmaceutical preventive measures which have greatly helped in creating awareness against the pandemic.

Furthermore, we have seen how the emir has been supporting and promoting the policies and programmes of the present administration in the state, as well as being personally present in all important government functions and activities. These have greatly encouraged the administration towards initiating more people-oriented projects and programmes across the state. What is more? All the ethnic groups that are originally not from the state are now enjoying robust and cordial relationship with the Kano Emirate more than ever before.

The doors of the emirate have remained open to the ethnic nationalities residing in Kano which has reasonably reinvigorated and strengthened the confidence these ethnic nationalities repose in the government and people of Kano State in general.

Similarly, in a manner that was not seen in recent times, since the demise of his highness (San-Kano) Ado Bayero, the present emir, like his late father, has been traversing the length and breadth of the country to liaise with his counterparts. This was carried out to seek avenues of cohesive inter-cultural relationship and chieftaincy relationship, hence the emir was at the palaces of the Emir of Ilorin; the Shehun Borno; the Alafin of Oyo; the Emir of Zazzau; Sultan of Sokoto; Oba of Benin; Ooni of Ife; Emir of Gombe; Orlu of Owerri among many others to mention but few.

The visit of the emir has tremendously attracted enormous goodwill to the Kano emirate and the state in general.

Back to Kano, the emir has since undertaken a tour of all the districts, major towns and villages under his supervision where he engaged the traditional heads, specifically to seek and initiate further means of sustaining peace and security in the localities. Perhaps, the emir was conscious of the fact that the traditional heads under his supervision have the local intelligence and network to check and keep crime at bay due to their closeness to the people in their localities.

In all the areas visited, the emir directed the lower traditional hierarchy to constantly brief him about the security situation in their localities, so that where necessary, the Kano emirate could keep the state government informed, with the view of taking proactive measures accordingly.

To conclude this piece, permit me to re-echo the demand forwarded in a memo to President Muhammadu Buhari by the group of traditional rulers who were at the presidential villa recently to have audience with the president.

In the said memo, it was reported that the royal fathers had sought the indulgence of the president to reason with the wisdom and gains which the inclusion of traditional rulers would provide if given the chance to be part of the National Council of State (NCS) which is the apex advisory council to the president in matters affecting the country.

I strongly believed the traditional rulers would play a vital role in the National Council of State, especially in this most difficult period of our history if given the chance.

The Nigerian collection of traditional rulers is permeated by people of impeccable character, influential and respected by their subjects, thus, their inclusion into the council of state has the twin potential of minimizing the nations security challenges.

This is because of their close affinity with the grassroots and as such in vantage position to guide the council and government on local intelligence and networking in order to mitigate rising cases of criminality across the country.

Meanwhile, Sarki Allah ya ja zamani, a gama lafiya, na yi “ladab” a gaban sarki.

Mohammed sent this from No. 8 Shendam Street, Jos – Plateau State.