A mighty elephant has fallen

Seven months ago, I wrote on this page a tribute to the Emir of Zazzau Alhaji Shehu Idris as he marked 45 years on the throne.

It was to be his last anniversary on the throne. This longest reigning monarch in the history of the very old Zazzau throne died in Kaduna at noon yesterday, after a brief illness, at the age of 84. His funeral was held late afternoon yesterday in Zaria and was attended by VIPs and mammoth crowds.

For the people of an emirate or a chiefdom in northern Nigeria, and in other parts of Nigeria, the death of a traditional ruler, especially a long serving one such as Alhaji Shehu Idris, is a defining event and a major reference point in the community’s history. Elderly folks in the community define events in terms of an emir’s reign; “it happened during the reign of so-and-so emir.” The 45 mostly peaceful, rarely turbulent and always very eventful years during which Alhaji Shehu Idris reigned will be used as a major reference point by elderly folks in Zazzau Emirate and even beyond.

A traditional ruler’s throne is the most enigmatic public office in Nigeria. Although it is not mentioned anywhere in the voluminous 1999 Constitution, it receives great deference from people whose public offices received elaborate constitutional mention. The throne has no term limits; it is the only public office in Nigeria that has a life tenure. In comparison, many people think the military service chiefs have overstayed after only five years in office. Permanent secretaries and directors must retire when they attain after 60 years of age, 35 years in service or even eight years on the same job. Ministers and commissioners live from one cabinet reshuffle to another. Senators and Reps live from one election circle to another. Though they have no tenure limit, they had an 80% casualty rate in every election since 1999. Governors and presidents too can only serve a maximum of eight years in office.

Unlike other public officers, an emir is never transferred to another emirate. He does not expect any promotion, except if he is a second or first class emir, in which case he could be upgraded. Emirs do not reshuffle their councils, though some title holders could get promoted to a higher title. Alhaji Shehu Idris was a young man of 39 when he became Emir of Zazzau in February 1975. His name was little known outside Zaria town where he was the District Head, unlike in the modern day when Army Generals, Police DIGs, a Customs Controller General, a former CBN governor, a Supreme Court judge, an Appeals Court judge, a former Vice Chancellor, even former civilian and military governors with well-known names become emirs and chiefs.

Alhaji Shehu Idris was appointed to the throne by the military governor Brigadier Abba Kyari in 1975. Since then, he reigned alongside 20 governors, nine of them civilians, eleven of them soldiers. The civilian governors variously belonged to PRP, NPN, NRC, PDP and APC, huge swings of the political pendulum, but Shehu Idris managed to get along with all of them. They included Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, the most radical civilian governor ever produced in Nigeria.

The military governors included Major Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, who The Economist of London described at the time of his appointment as “a young leftist Major.” They also included Colonel Hameed Ali, known in Kaduna State during his rule as “Netanyahu” for his abrasive ways. As far as the public knew, none of those 20 governors ever threatened Alhaji Shehu Idris with deposition or even issued him with a query. He was a very good tightrope walker.

Alhaji Shehu Idris became an emir in North Central State in 1975. The following year, General Murtala Mohammed renamed it to Kaduna State. Eleven years later, with Idris still on the Zazzau throne, General Babangida split it into Katsina and Kaduna states in 1987. That act ended the fierce rivalry between Katsina and Zazzau that pervaded old Kaduna State. However, a new form of division, occasioned by political and sometimes physical conflict between the peoples of southern and northern Kaduna State, soon replaced it.

Northern versus Southern Kaduna dichotomy often resulted in ugly sectarian riots. The worst ones were the Kafanchan riot of 1987, two rounds of Zangon Kataf riots in 1992, two Shari’a riots of 2000 AD as well as the post-election riots of 2011 and 2012. Rivalry and conflict also persist in politics and in public service appointments. Emir Shehu Idris did what he could, behind the scenes and sometimes in front of the scenes, to curb the violence. In 2001 when I was Editor of New Nigerian, we reported that the emir personally rushed to the scene when he heard that youths at Tudun Wada area were about to start a riot. The boys took to their heels when they saw the emir, even though he was escorted by only a few traditional bodyguards.

During Shehu Idris’ reign, almost all the non-Hausa/Fulani majority parts of Zazzau Emirate were excised and they became independent chiefdoms. This must had been painful for Idris; emirs don’t want their territory to be diminished any more than governors want their states to split. He however bore it with stoicism as an imperative of the times and was never heard to object to it. Following one such chiefdom creation exercise in 2001, some Muslim parts of Zazzau Emirate also agitated for independence. When I interviewed Governor Ahmed Makarfi on the issue at the time, he said while he understood the agitation by ethnic minority, non-Muslim areas for traditional autonomy, he will not agree to excise any Muslim area from Zazzau Emirate.

From the very onset of his reign, nothing popularized Sarkin Zazzau Shehu Idris in Hausaland quite like the praise song in his honour by the late Alhaji Mamman Shata. Shata used the catchiest of phrases, idioms and picturesque allusions to describe Shehu Idris, including silk cotton tree that adorns a town; bull elephant that defies all traps; buffalo, the cow on the loose; roan antelope that does not suffer confusion because of an archer; and the camel among emirs.

To have survived on the throne for 45 years was not a mean feat. In recent decades alone, three of the four top traditional rulers in the old Northern Nigeria Chiefs’ Order of Precedence were deposed. Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki was deposed in 1996; Emir of Gwandu Almustapha Jokolo was deposed in 2005 and Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II was deposed earlier this year. Emirs were also deposed in Muri, Suleja and Agaie over the years. Probably the key factors for a traditional ruler to survive tumultuous times are wisdom, restraint, pretending to respect those in political authority, non-involvement in politics, adroit balancing act, earning the people’s respect, studious avoidance of controversy and keeping your mouth shut in public.

The death of Alhaji Shehu Idris is expected to revive the cut-throat competition for the throne among its great ruling houses, Barebari, Mallawa, Sullubawa and Shehu Idris’ Katsinawa. Princes from all four houses have waited for 45 years for this chance. If a prince loses this contest, unlike a governorship candidate that has only four years to wait for another chance, he may have to wait for many decades. To their credit, these ruling houses kept their competition below the radar all these years and it hardly burst into the open. Alhaji Shehu Idris’ adroit balancing act had a lot to do with that; he preserved each ruling house’s titles and privileges. Inter-marriage among them also helped to ease the competition.

The contenders most often mentioned are Yariman Zazzau Alhaji Munir Jafaru, former Executive Secretary of National Maritime Authority, and Magajin Garin Zazzau Alhaji Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli, who recently returned to the country from his post as Ambassador to Thailand. The choice of a new emir will kickstart with the traditional kingmakers but in modern times, the Governor of Kaduna State has the final say.