Dutse: ‘The more colours, the more royal the palace’

This palace  has an inspiring loveliness  which is a result  of the  renovations done by the Emir of Dutse

It is located in Garu, a part of the Jigawa state capital ,and it is surrounded by rocks and sits on an elevation. This is the palace of the Emir of Dutse. Some years ago during a visit the Emir took me on a tour of the palace, and this is something I won’t forget. Normally, the visitor to any palace is handed over by palace officials to a guard or a secretary to go round the palace. But here the Emir himself took  me round the palace.
Unknown to many, today the palace  has undergone extensive renovation so that when you visit you receive a pleasant surprise. It is a new stunning place and when tourists get to know what lies in Dutse, they are very likely to flock there. It  is natural for human beings  to  flock to serene locations. The entire approach to the palace on both the left and right sides of the road has been decorated in red and green colours. It is an impressive winding sight. In the palace every single room for receiving guests has been renovated as well as all the interconnecting passages and doorways.
The Arewa symbol is very dominant and nice rugs grace the floors in all the rooms. All  the walls are done in a  selection of  colours which make the visitor speechless. I am shown  a  part of the palace which is 200 years old and has been preserved.
Alhaji Nuhu Muhammad Sanusi, the Emir of Dutse comments “The palace has undergone tremendous uplift, but we tried not to tamper with the  traditional look inside, but we have changed the outside. Inside there are rooms which are 200 years old. If you make them modern, it does not make any sense. So we left them  as they are. But we used cement to protect them from the outside because in those days there was no cement.”

Emir Sanusi explains that the front of the palace has been tampered with but just  a bit “The murals are there but we added some more features because Dutse is a rock. So, we added rock walls so that they depict the environment. But the murals are everywhere in the palace now. In our tradition, royalty means colours, so the more colours you have the more royal the palace. So, you have all sorts of colours and these are symbols which depict northern unity.”