Poisoned by mistrust, large egos and bad blood, the political atmosphere in Kano State is provocative. The cause célèbre this time is Monday’s deposition of Muhammadu Sanusi II as the emir of Kano by the state Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje. Not satisfied with the dethronement, the government swiftly banished him to Nasarawa State. It did not stop there, claiming blithely that security reports pointed to Sanusi as a security threat, restrictions were imposed on his movements, and he is suppressed by a battalion of security agents. This sounds like splitting hairs. Such dictatorial throwback to feudalism and colonial era occupation is reckless, damaging and wholly unacceptable. In modern justice system, only a court has such powers.
Scandalously, Sanusi was treated like a common war criminal. Shortly after the government’s announcement, he was forcibly ejected from the palace with the police firing tear gas to scare away sympathisers who had gathered to identify with him. It was a blatant show of crude power. First, his entourage was taken to Loko, Nasarawa State, by road, arriving by 2 am on Tuesday. From Loko, he was whisked to Awe, another community within the state. Sanusi has been kept under the watch of heavily armed security agents. Even ordinary felons do not attract such humiliating treatment.
What is the Kano governor playing at? Or, perhaps this question should also be directed at the President, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who controls the security agencies that provided the muscle for Ganduje’s vengeful action. The Kano State Attorney-General, Ibrahim Muktar, was economical with the truth when he said on Wednesday that banishment was not in the statement announcing the deposition on Monday. But it said, “…the governor has approved and directed your immediate removal and dethronement as Emir of Kano and also for your immediate relocation to Nasarawa State in accordance with the relevant section of the State Emirate Council Law of 2019.” Immediate forceful relocation is banishment or exile, whether so spelt out or not. But no law can overturn constitutionally guaranteed rights. In any case, as quoted by Sanusi’s lawyers, the Court of Appeal in a similar case of the deposition and banishment of Mustapha Jokolo as Emir of Gwandu, upheld the sanctity of sections 35 and 41 (of the constitution) and ruled the actions of the Kebbi State Government at that time illegal and unconstitutional.
The Presidency hid behind a finger when it said the President did not have a history of intervening in affairs of any state in the country, unless the issue at hand is of national consequence. “On such matters which impinge on national security, he has a duty of involvement as the law stipulates.” The responsibility for the exposure of Sanusi to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as well as psychological torture, rests jointly with the Buhari regime and the Ganduje government. Apart from a court of law, it is unconstitutional to subject any citizen to a prolonged, involuntary and arbitrary confinement.
As explained in “Facing History and Ourselves”, an online publication, the rule of law was first codified in Western European governments in the Magna Carta in 1215, when English nobles demanded that King John’s powers to arbitrarily arrest or imprison them be curtailed. The charter states that even the king had to follow the law.
No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseized, outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will he proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the Law of the Land. The Kano State Government went beyond its brief by its “relocation” and the Buhari regime is complicit by deploying the full weight of the security apparatus to enforce the outrage. Human rights are guarded by the constitution and sustained by law. And this is to ensure that governments are not allowed to abuse ordinary people with impunity.
The case of rightness or otherwise of the dethronement is for the combatants and the courts to sort out, while banishment and restriction are another. These touch directly on fundamental rights, the incongruity of archaic feudal practices with democracy and the rule of law, the abuse of human rights and misuse of security agencies under the Buhari regime and the deployment of state authority to settle personal scores. This event has done another huge damage to Nigeria’s unimpressive human rights record in the world. Banishment and exile are relics of a feudal and colonial past that have no place in today’s democratic space.
Admittedly, traditional matters are local or emirate affairs, but there is nothing in the constitution suggesting that religious, traditional or cultural matters are above the constitution. Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution is unambiguous: sections 35 and 41 guarantee the rights to personal liberty and freedom of movement respectively. The law also prescribes that no one be held without trial for more than 48 hours. These rights and the law have now been brazenly trampled upon.
It is therefore apposite to say that Sanusi should forthwith be granted unqualified and unfettered freedom. It is bad enough that he has been relieved of his throne in dubious circumstances, but his situation does not have to be compounded by the denial of his right to freedoms of movement and association. Sixty years into independence, Nigeria should have purged herself of such negative and backward practices.
Nigerians should imbibe a culture that understands the concept of the rule of law, respects human rights and accepts that they be enforced and with the support of the government at all times. The basic tenets of democracy are guarantees of free and fair elections, the rights of minorities, freedom of the press, and the rule of law. On Buhari’s watch, we are seeing a steady accumulation and acceleration of insidiously incremental abuses of power that, taken together, continue to erode these basic tenets.
Without a doubt, Sanusi is a prisoner of conscience. Reports indicate that he is being denied visitors, kept in by no fewer than 40 police, State Security Service and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps personnel, who, in their usual overzealousness, have been turning back visitors. Sanusi should not arbitrarily be deprived of his liberty. His fundamental human rights, given expressly under the constitution, should be immediately restored. Citizens assailed by the imperious repression of the government should seek redress in the court, and civil society should step up all peaceful means to advance the cause of liberty and fundamental freedoms.
