Traditional rulers in the north these days must engage in guarded standoffishness even when the north is a boiling cauldron. It seems that the puritanical burrow of the northern cabal furrowed only because Sanusi Lamido Sanusi committed class suicide and touched on issues which the cabal expected him not to talk about. I have heard it said that people who benefit from inequality resist change and that dignity comes from servitude for certain people.
The issues the former emir touched on are legion: he cautioned the north to move away from medieval traditions and embrace global pluralism, to strengthen cultural consciousness, human rights, and the appreciation of worldwide interdependence, increase national perspective and awareness away from the narrow and pedestrian historical perspectives about Nigeria.
Sanusi bursting at the seams with developmental ideas told northern leaders to be responsible to the northern people, build social action skills, respect human dignity, and to combat discrimination against the girl-child.
He told the oligarchs that Saudi Arabia is changing some of its dogmas due to avant-gardism and that the north should move with the times to give girls proper education. On many occasions he said that Iran, the only theocratic country in the world takes the education of the girl-child seriously and why shouldn’t northern Nigeria copy the model of Iran?
Should this man have been hung out in the open to dry for speaking truth to power for the growth of the north and people?
Development experts are not diplomats. They work with analytics, data and facts and speak truth to power.
And the facts of the matter according to Sanusi are that: The north is mature enough to free itself from the apron springs of Saudi Arabia and Iran and to carve its own religious niche. He advised the north to refine sharia, convert mosques to schools instead of building many and build schools.
I see him as one of the very few northern technocrats that mean well for the development of the north in words and in deed.
The others are the late Bala Usman, Aminu Kano, Balarabe Musa, and the current Sultan of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar.
What Sanusi tried to do for the north is for northern leaders to make northern people stay on task? Scrap the almajiri that has become an international embarrassment, move away from the celebration of poverty.
He thought he was an effective body guard for the north, but the northern cabal gave him a demonic grin; they saw him as a small town politician in a traditional robe and disrobed him.
Who would take Sanusi’s place? Who will speak for the north and guard the north?
The north without the type of Sanusi and his ilk may be a place with no education, no hope, and no money, unfortunately.
Written by Simon Abah, Abuja.
The Nation
