The Secretary General of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, has said he would not be surprised if the Sokoto Emirate is broken up, too.
There has been a gale of tumultuous silence since Tuesday when the Kano State Government created four new emirates – Gaya, Bichi, Karaye and Rano – bringing the total number of emirates in the state to five.
Asked if he thought Sokoto, the last emirate standing, would also be broken up, Sani said: “I cannot tell precisely because governance and traditions of society are dynamic and in a state of flux.
“If language, which is emblematic of culture is dynamic, traditional institution is subject to change.
“There will be nothing exotic or quixotic if such changes take place in Sokoto State.”
Sani told The Interview on Thursday that breaking up spheres of traditional influence, even in Kano, was not new.
“Governor Abubakar Rimi (former Kano State Governor) did it before,” Sani said, adding: “It was President (Muhammadu) Buhari in his first coming as military head of state that reversed it.”
On Tuesday, the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, assented a law passed 24 hours earlier by the state House of Assembly creating four new emirates in Kano.
It was the high-point of the running battle between Ganduje and the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, though the governor later said he created the new emirates to take the state to “the next level” – a reference to the political mantra of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Sani told The Interview that the former Plateau State Governor, Solomon Lar, had done something similar in the past, when he increased chiefdoms in Plateau under the “emancipation mantra.”
He also added that the former Military Governor of Kaduna State, Ja’afaru Isa, created chiefdoms in the southern part of the state to extend the influence of the so-called non-indigenes.
Sani said a similar situation happened in Oyo State under the outgoing governor, Abiola Ajimobi.
Asked if breaking up the Kano Emirate would bring government closer to the people, Sani said he was not sure because there is no place for traditional rulers in the 1999 constitution, especially in a republic.
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