Four years after Muhammadu Sanusi II was deposed as the Emir of Kano, Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State has reinstated him to the throne.
“With the full support of the kingmakers, I have approved the reappointment of Malam Sanusi Lamido,” the governor said to cheers at the Art Chamber of the Kano State Government House around 5:16 pm on Thursday.
Emir Sanusi II, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, was known as Lamido Sanusi before becoming king.
Governor Yusuf reinstated him right after signing the Kano State Emirate Council (Repeal) Bill 2024 into law.
The new law replaces the Kano State Emirates Council Law, 2019, and dissolves the emirate councils created by Governor Yusuf’s predecessor Abdullahi Ganduje.
It was that law that Ganduje used to split the Kano Emirate into five in December 2019 and deposed the 14th Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II on March 9, 2020. The emirates created by the Ganduje administration were Karaye, Bichi, Rano, and Gaya, in addition to Kano.
The decision generated controversy back then, and in reversing it, Governor Yusuf said it was the reversal of a law “that balkanised the over 1,000-year-old Kano Emirate”.
Based on the new law, the governor gave the emirs that held sway at the dissolved emirates 48 hours to vacate their palaces.
“From the very moment I signed the bill into law it means that all appointments made in accordance with that 2019 law are voided and the balkanised Kano Emirate has been restored to its original pre-2019 status,” he said.
“The repeal of the 2019 law means that there is no emir in Kano as of now except the reinstated emir.”
