Why the North is failing

“A large chair does not make a king”. African proverb

By the time you read this, the ancient Emirate of Zazzau may or may not have a new Emir to succeed the late Alhaji Shehu Idris who had been emir for 45 years. It entirely depends on what the State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai decides to do. The process of selecting a new Emir of Zazzau has a fairly-innocent familiarity to it, although it is activated only rarely. Descendants of former emirs from the four ruling houses who are interested in becoming emirs submit themselves for scrutiny and evaluation by the four Kingmakers who are known by their offices and the responsibilities they perform. Kingmakers then submit a shortlist to the political authority (in contemporary terms, the State governor). He in turn chooses who becomes emir from the shortlist, presumably after further vetting and scrutiny.

This is where the process loses its innocence. The decision regarding who becomes emir is fundamentally political. From the beginning of the last century when northern emirs lost out to colonialism, they became essentially its agents and props, serving at its pleasure and providing a cheap and effective mode of control over large populations through the elaborate structures it had used to govern pre-colonial communities. In sixty years of colonial rule, the colonial (political)authority made it clear who was in charge and what the roles of emirs were, removing quite a few for disloyalty or incompetence in implementing major colonial policies. A few emirs emerged owing only to tinkering with the process and flexing of political muscles, but generally, succession was confined to royalty, and all the outer trimmings of power were preserved. Emirs (and chiefs) wielded delegated powers and served the purpose of creating the illusion of continuity in periods of great changes.

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The political elite that succeeded colonial authority was thoroughly grounded in a system that gave it huge powers largely because the Emirate system had been turned  into a major political asset, but only if it served its interests. A few skirmishes here and there reinforced the superiority of the politician over the emir in real terms. Emirs learnt to submit to political authority and preserve the comforting illusion among millions of peasants that they represented all that was decent and valued under an intensely divisive political system that had no room for neutral power or opposition. There was enough room for both, but Emirs had to learn to be good or even better politicians than the new political elite. The old North was a huge territory that was structured around ambitious politicians, politicised emirs, a tiny but influential emerging middle class and a peasantry that was content to be left alone once it settled its obligations to the state.

Then the military marched all over a delicate system, carving out political territories that lowered the state’s span of control, the calibre of the politician and reduced the space for maneuver between the fortunes and desperation of the politician and the vulnerability of the emir/chief who is now more visible as a rival, collaborator or a threat to the politician. Political engineering resulting in more and more states created multiple centres of power and politicians whose  leadership qualities were constantly decreasing. Local government areas, intended to serve as vehicles for faster local-level development ended up as mere shells, deepening  the plunder of state resources and squeezing  lower-level traditional structures into irrelevance. Control of power and resources became the only goal of political competition, and fights for them became increasingly bitter. Most emirs/chiefs learnt to adapt to virtual irrelevance except as discreet or prominent cheerleaders of partisan politicians. The North has paid too much for stifling poor governance, its ungoverned portions increasing with a worrisome population size, insecurity  and poverty.

Late Emir Shehu Idris lived through the best and the worst moments in the history of the North. He became emir on the eve of the infamous local government reforms; lived through the highs and lows of the military’s self-destruct forays against politicians and each other; witnessed faltering attempts to plant a democratic system in a desert of democratic values; watched his Emirate shrink as bits and pieces drifted away with rising influence of ethnic and religious politics in Kaduna State; took cover as Shiism took root and blossomed into a phenomenon in his Emirate; worried over the de-industrialisation of Zaria; lived with the  suffocating neighbourhood  of Kaduna city; welcomed the influx of educational institutions, which formed the backbone of Zaria’s economy; played friends and foes with politicians; missed fellow  emirs who had shared his fate for decades and one or two who got fingers badly burnt as they stood up to bullying governors; and, in his twilight days, kept his head low as he shared space with a governor who had little sympathy for tradition or even the mildest resistance.

Ordinarily, the people of Zazzau Emirate would have known who is their new emir a few days after the death of Emir Shehu Idris. Ordinarily, it would have been a situation in which Governor el-Rufai does not have the final say. When you have politicians like el-Rufai, it is advisable to prepare for the unexpected. There is a process in place, but it has no time limits outside those set by the governor  and is open to manipulation and even abuse by everyone, including  the governor. And yes, there are also  consequences, but these do not really matter to the degree that they are what he wishes. He could choose to keep the public informed of the reasons behind the length of time the conclusion of the process is taking, but that would create an illusion that he thinks he is accountable to the public. To be fair, he did say he was reading some books on the history of king-making in Zaria. Other than this, the rumour mills are replete with talks of bribery, new long and shortlists and arm-twisting. And the people wait and fume and lament and quarrel. Someone will eventually emerge emir, and those who lose and their supporters will choose how they react.

The North has thousands of politicians and very few leaders. Leaders will do the right thing by their people, and they will attempt to convince the people who voted them into power why they chose which options. Northern leaders like el-Rufai give the impression that the public’s opinion of them and their policies are irrelevant unless they are voting. Leaders with power or influence sufficient enough to advise el-Rufai would convince el-Rufai to show respect and  sensitivity to a public that deserves to know. There are a few with this power, but they, like him, think the public is generally a disposable  nuisance. If the process had been subverted before it got to the governor, he would have been duty bound to deal with it within the law. A sense of propriety would push him to take a decision that can never be perfect.

The North is failing because it is being superintended by politicians whose ego is much bigger than their mandates, and others who have no idea about just and effective governance, so they retreat behind opulence until the next elections or end of terms. The drama over the Zazzau Emir captures the reality that the North must revisit its foundations, rebuild trust around leaders and create alternatives to the system, which creates the type of leaders it has today. In the meantime, maximum leaders like Gov el-Rufai need to be reminded that there are consequences to their actions, many of which are out of their control.