John Ogunsemore
The reinstated Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has said he used the opportunity of his four-year ouster to improve himself.
The Emir said this in an interview with Saturday Sun.
Sanusi was removed by the Kano State Government under Abdullahi Ganduje for “insubordination” in 2020. He was reinstated by the incumbent administration of Abba Kabir Yusuf in May.
On his four-year hiatus, the Emir said, “Life is always a continuous process of learning and relearning. And for me, I had always believed, as they say, that we should not waste a crisis.
“So, anytime I have a crisis, it’s an opportunity to do something else.”
He said that rather than fighting the state government over his removal, “I had a happier life in Lagos with my friends, publishing my book, doing my PhD, doing my UN work, doing my Tijaniya work”.
The former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reiterated that his time away from the throne helped him to gain a better perspective on issues.
“In the last four years, I’ve not been idle. In fact, I had just completed writing a PhD Thesis in the University of London, a week before I returned to Kano.
“I will be going back next month to conclude some things because I will be graduating in September.
“Let us just take that as an example, the PhD thesis I wrote was on the codification of Islamic Family Law as an instrument of social reform.
“This was one of my major projects as an emir trying to codify Islamic law to deal with a number of issues around child marriage, around domestic violence, around child spacing and basically women and children’s rights and so on.
“And because I did a PhD on the subject matter, some of the things I learnt have basically made me rethink some of the premises upon which we are passing that law.
“Today, if I were to reconstitute the committee, I will have different areas of emphasis and different understanding of some of the issues.”
He added, “The PhD was a major eye-opener. Like I said, I am not the kind of person that just sits in one place and says, okay, now that I am not an emir, let me wait until I become something else. No. I said ok, let me do something with my time and I have moved.
“For me, it was on transition. I was governor of the Central Bank. I was told to move and I moved. People have jobs and they resign, right? You’re a former civil servant, former teacher, former this or that. Yes, I was an emir for six years. It’s nothing. I moved on but now, God decreed that I must come back. It is a new transition.”
Emir Sanusi said he would be open to imparting his knowledge to graduate students at Bayero University, Kano soon.
“With all the knowledge I have built, I’ve improved myself. When I finish my PhD, hopefully, I will ask Bayero University for an opportunity to once in a while go and give academic lectures and postgraduate seminars on Islamic law.
“I won’t have the time to give a full course or to mark, but all this research; the data that I had gathered in Kano needs to be shared with the younger generation,” he said.