Any observer of Nigerian affairs over the past week would struggle to decide which of the two is more vexing: the government’s completely unnecessary involvement in the still unfolding emirship tussle in Kano or its completely unnecessary tinkering with Nigeria’s national anthem at this point. Tinubu’s involvement in Kano is not just a bad idea, it is completely unnecessary. I have racked my small brain a million times, and still cannot find one good reason why the federal government—and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in particular—would want to expend scarce political capital on a long-running feud between two princely cousins in Kano, a city and state that is perhaps the most politically charged environment in Nigeria.
Senior administration officials would probably not like to hear this said, but anyone who points it out is in fact doing them a favour. And in that sense, my advice for President Tinubu will be to quickly get out of Kano before he gets stuck in a conflict which he can neither win nor afford to lose; or rather, one which he loses even if he wins. But let me clarify first that this is not a commentary on who between the 14th/16th Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness Muhammadu Sanusi II and the 15th Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness Aminu Ado Bayero is the rightful person to ascend the Kano throne at this moment of crisis. My intent in this commentary and analysis is merely to point out the constitutional and political logjam in all of this, and why the issue needs to be resolved quickly because neither benefits Tinubu and his government.
What is happening right now in Kano goes beyond a “royal rumble” of two princely cousins, as the media have tagged it. There have been effectively two emirs in Kano over the past few weeks, perhaps a first in the caliphate history of northern Nigeria, stretching over 200 years. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that both emirs held Friday prayers publicly at two separate locations in Kano.
I don’t know if President Tinubu is aware, but leading or attending Friday prayer is an important public function for an emir in the caliphate system, and thus cannot happen by two emirs claiming the same throne in the same city. That it happened in Kano last week is an attack not just on the Kano emirship but on the caliphal system as a whole. All northern Nigerians know this, even if they are silent. This is one sense in which the situation in Kano goes beyond a tussle for the throne between two princes.
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There is another, however. The royal impasse in Kano is also effectively a constitutional crisis; a test of whether the executive and parliamentary bodies of a state government in Nigeria, regardless of whatever their motivations, have the power to make or annul a law in their own jurisdiction without federal interference, and who can enforce or challenge such power. To the extent that Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, as most of Nigeria’s constitutions before it, leaves chieftaincy matters entirely at the hands of state governments, the Kano State Assembly and executive have the power to do what they did, regardless of their motivations, and it is simply for the federal security agencies to ensure its implementation.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the law, and whether the motivations behind the law are political or not, are all immaterial at this point. Anyone from Kano can, of course, challenge the law in court, and they could win the case to have the law upturned. But until a court of competent jurisdiction makes a definitive ruling on the case, the law passed by the Kano State Assembly and assented to by the state governor must first be applied and applied without any restrictions. The police and federal security agencies have so far prevented this from happening, which effectively turns the case into a constitutional tussle between the Kano State government and the federal government as to who has the power to do what within our constitutional system. But it is also why it is pointless for the federal government to keep denying its involvement, which is as clear as daylight, since only the President controls the police and other security agencies in Nigeria.
This brings us to why the federal government deems it necessary to get involved in the first place. I can think of only two reasons for the federal government’s involvement, one constitutional, the other political. First, as the federal government has claimed all through, its involvement is merely to uphold the law by enforcing the court order. We can take the government for its words here, but as I have pointed out above, this is a false—and fake—position. A court injunction is not a ruling that follows the proper hearing of a case and cannot take precedence over a law passed by a state assembly and assented to by a state governor. Therefore, that claim cannot stand serious public scrutiny, whatever the government thinks.
More importantly, President Tinubu is in court against state governments in a bid to re-assert the constitutional powers of local government councils now illegally appropriated by governors. If the courts find in Tinubu’s favour in that case, he would have achieved one of his most enduring legacies for Nigeria for which he would be remembered forever. And for that reason, almost all Nigerians are behind him on that. But his present involvement in Kano is a serious contradiction of the very essence of that case, and I personally cannot understand why the President would want to throw away the massive political capital he stands to gain from his case against the governors by inciting a constitutional crisis in Kano.
The political case for interference is also untenable. It is true that Tinubu won last year’s presidential election by a slender margin. And for that reason, the government tends to do almost everything with an eye on the 2027 elections. That is a fair and legitimate concern for a first-term president. But overthinking it has its perils too.
If the government’s involvement in Kano is part of its calculations ahead of the 2027 elections, that is clearly overthinking taken too far. There are many ways to skin a cat as there are to catch a rat. I don’t know what President Tinubu and his advisers know, but I cannot see any political benefits for them in this their messy Kano affair now or ahead of 2027. All I see is the potential for Tinubu to lose hard-earned political capital over a matter that started in 1963, at least for one of the parties.
If the goal is to position towards the 2027 election, then surely the better strategy would be for Tinubu and his government to stay out of this Kano issue at this time, watch patiently on the sidelines as events unfold through local authorities or the courts, and then, when the time comes, reposition himself strategically to reap political benefits from it all. The number one law of politics is the same as in war or business: spend less to gain more. But here we are. The president has got both his hands and his nose muddied by an issue that does not really concern him whatsoever. We here can only wish him—and Kano—the best.
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