I really like this author. He wrote a book I fukk with too and hes a dope writer on African politics and development:
Now Personally...I disagree with polygamy, and I think the theocratic monarchy is an outdated and unjust system...and I'm not a fan of islam...but hey, this is still an interesting interview from a little known state.
I didn't know this dude was the fukking CENTRAL BANK MINISTER though
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The Emir of Kano on polygamy and Nigeria’s ‘missing billions’
The former Nigerian central banker on not feeling guilty about inheriting privilege
March 16, 2018
It is somewhat disconcerting to stare up at a 10ft portrait of the man with whom you are about to dine. There, on the luminescent green wall of his palace, is a portrait of the Emir of Kano in all his resplendence. He’s decked out in a full-length gold and blue robe, a shimmering hat like an outsized bowler, and furry sandals the size of dinner plates. That such a personage could be alive today, let alone about to eat with me, seems mildly preposterous.
It is nearly 8pm and the palace is eerily deserted. I’m being led by a retainer along a dark corridor. The emir had proposed dinner rather than lunch because of his schedule and the timings of flights to Kano, an ancient city in northern Nigeria. I’d looked into driving from Abuja, but had been warned about a recent spate of kidnappings.
I find myself alone in a library with a large throne at one end and an old ceiling fan clattering overhead. The books are mostly histories of Africa, but there is also a prominently displayed copy of Private Eye with a cover featuring Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, and a Muppet.
Part of the modern and the ancient establishment, the 56-year-old Lamido Sanusi II inhabits two worlds. As Emir of Kano, he is considered the most important Muslim authority in Nigeria after the Sultan of Sokoto. A former banker, he is also known for his actions as central bank governor in 2014, when he sent shockwaves through the establishment by exposing a $20bn shortfall in state coffers. Under the cloak of tradition, he takes pot shots at the elite and pronounces on social issues, including child marriage, which still flourishes in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north. There are those who consider him brilliant and those who consider him arrogant. Not a few consider him both.
Eventually someone comes for me. I’m walked through the formal gardens towards the emir’s quarters, an imposing white building, ablaze with lights. A retainer leads me into another library, this one more modern and with an almost cinema-sized flat-screen TV embedded in one of the floor-to ceiling-bookcases. There are 20,000 books.
Time passes. I fiddle with a tissue box printed with a photograph of the emir. On the side, where normally it would say Kleenex, it reads “Muhammad Sanusi II”.
The silence is disturbed by chanting. The doors are flung open and in glides Sanusi. “Sorry for being late,” he says. It is past 9pm. “I had not been informed you had arrived.” He speaks in an impeccable English of the sort that has withered in Britain itself. In the flesh, he’s wearing a simple white robe, his head covered with a Yasser Arafat-style headscarf.
Sanusi during his coronation in Kano in 2015 © Reuters
We move to the dining room, which is decorated in pale yellow. A table has been set and silver tureens are arranged along one wall. Oddly, for a house with dozens of servants, we are to serve ourselves. Sanusi, quite familiar with Lunch with the FT, describes the food. “This is waina,” he explains, pointing to some puffy bread. “W-A-I-N-A. It’s made from rice. The rice is ground. It’s then made into paste and fried in oil. And it goes with a vegetable soup.”
“This is tuwo shinkafa,” he continues, using a Hausa word for snow-white balls of pounded rice. He proceeds through each tureen: chicken and spinach curry, green soup, plantains, white rice and, of course, the orange jollof rice, without which no Nigerian feast is complete.
Muhammadu Buhari. “The thing about the ‘missing billions’ is you’re never going to find them in one place,” he says, explaining that much of the money was dissipated in complex arbitrage, invoice and subsidy scams.
Jonathan and the governor of Kano were adversaries. Any enemy of Jonathan’s was a friend of the governor. Sanusi got the nod. “As a Muslim, we believe that God decides who will be emir,” he explains, dipping his heavy silver spoon into the elegant soup bowl. “Then he creates a situation such that circumstances conspire to lead to that predetermined result.”
It hits me how strange this encounter is. This is possibly the only time in my life I’ll sit down with a man who believes he was selected by God. It is like dropping in for a bite with the Sun King. If God relies on the machinations of Nigerian politics to bring about his will, I muse, then he really does work in mysterious ways. Divinely chosen or not, Sanusi is in no doubt he deserves it.
A horse belonging to the the Emir of Kano © David Pilling
“It’s not for me to say,” he adds, before proceeding, “but the kingmakers look at a number of qualities. I spent my life as a successful banker. I taught economics at the university. I worked at an investment bank. I was chief risk officer in the two largest banks in the country. I was the CEO of the oldest and largest commercial bank in Nigeria, First Bank. I was the best central bank governor four years out of five. Why would I feel guilty about inheriting privilege? I have earned my stars in every competitive environment.” With a CV like that, God could hardly have said no.
Sanusi is part of the 25m-strong Fulani ethnic group who live across a tract of the Sahel and West Africa. Primarily Muslim, they trace their roots to North Africa and the Middle East. His line of emirs dates from the jihad waged by Usman dan Fodio, born in 1754, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, which overran much of what is today northern Nigeria. Kano had been founded in the 10th century. The palace we’re in was built five centuries later. “I’m the 57th king, but I’m the 14th Fulani emir and the 13th in my line.”
He scans the ornate surroundings. “I grew up here. My father was a crown prince but he was a career diplomat, so I was brought up by a guardian.” He was sent to Catholic primary school in the nearby city of Kaduna and went on to King’s College Lagos, the Ahmadu Bello University and later the International University of Africa in Khartoum. “I have the benefit of having been in and out of this culture, knowing all the traditions of the palace, but also mixing in a more heterogeneous setting.”
It feels empty, I say. Who else lives here? “You’d be surprised. You’ve got some princesses, my grandfather’s sisters, my cousins, my father’s sisters, my nieces. Then we’ve got the wives and concubines of previous emirs who chose to stay here. And you’ve got the help and their families. Historically, you had slaves in the palace, and they’re now basically part of the families. So they’re there. They literally call themselves ‘the slaves of kings’. They use that word, but you don’t buy or sell or own them.”
For a self-proclaimed modernist, I say, “isn’t this all a bit . . . ” — I fumble for the word — “medieval?”
“It’s important for us to retain our history, to retain our roots. But the books, you see, are not medieval.” Later, he directs me to some volumes from his “Marxist days”, including the Collected Works of Vladimir Lenin.
“A lot of my writings are progressive. I’ve been involved in such debates as why it is OK to cut off the hand of a man who stole a goat, but allow a governor or a minister who stole millions to get away with it.” That hardly makes him a Trotskyite. “People think I’m radical, but I’m not,” he says, pouring us both some blood-red hibiscus juice. “In Sudan, they call it kerkede.” It’s sweet with a subtle tartness.
“My daughter wants to be the next emir of Kano, and she’s disappointed I’ve not yet appointed a woman to the Kano Emirate Council.” Couldn’t she be emir, I ask, prompting a giggle. “It’s got to be incremental, without necessarily turning the society on its head,” he says, adding that perhaps his granddaughter or great-granddaughter could take the position. Sanusi has seven daughters and five sons.
“That is the greatest challenge for us. How are you a custodian of a legacy, of a history, of a culture? And how do you also serve as a guide as that culture navigates its way in a modern world?”
It seems a good time to broach his marital arrangements. As we help ourselves to another round of food — I go for the curry and a tennis-sized ball of pounded rice — I inquire which of his wives prepared the food. “OK, I have four wives,” he says, clarifying that his fourth is still at university and won’t join him at the palace until she has graduated. “I believe this came from two of the wives,” he says.
Now Personally...I disagree with polygamy, and I think the theocratic monarchy is an outdated and unjust system...and I'm not a fan of islam...but hey, this is still an interesting interview from a little known state.
I didn't know this dude was the fukking CENTRAL BANK MINISTER though
Subscribe to read
The Emir of Kano on polygamy and Nigeria’s ‘missing billions’
The former Nigerian central banker on not feeling guilty about inheriting privilege
March 16, 2018
It is somewhat disconcerting to stare up at a 10ft portrait of the man with whom you are about to dine. There, on the luminescent green wall of his palace, is a portrait of the Emir of Kano in all his resplendence. He’s decked out in a full-length gold and blue robe, a shimmering hat like an outsized bowler, and furry sandals the size of dinner plates. That such a personage could be alive today, let alone about to eat with me, seems mildly preposterous.
It is nearly 8pm and the palace is eerily deserted. I’m being led by a retainer along a dark corridor. The emir had proposed dinner rather than lunch because of his schedule and the timings of flights to Kano, an ancient city in northern Nigeria. I’d looked into driving from Abuja, but had been warned about a recent spate of kidnappings.
I find myself alone in a library with a large throne at one end and an old ceiling fan clattering overhead. The books are mostly histories of Africa, but there is also a prominently displayed copy of Private Eye with a cover featuring Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, and a Muppet.
Part of the modern and the ancient establishment, the 56-year-old Lamido Sanusi II inhabits two worlds. As Emir of Kano, he is considered the most important Muslim authority in Nigeria after the Sultan of Sokoto. A former banker, he is also known for his actions as central bank governor in 2014, when he sent shockwaves through the establishment by exposing a $20bn shortfall in state coffers. Under the cloak of tradition, he takes pot shots at the elite and pronounces on social issues, including child marriage, which still flourishes in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north. There are those who consider him brilliant and those who consider him arrogant. Not a few consider him both.
Eventually someone comes for me. I’m walked through the formal gardens towards the emir’s quarters, an imposing white building, ablaze with lights. A retainer leads me into another library, this one more modern and with an almost cinema-sized flat-screen TV embedded in one of the floor-to ceiling-bookcases. There are 20,000 books.
Time passes. I fiddle with a tissue box printed with a photograph of the emir. On the side, where normally it would say Kleenex, it reads “Muhammad Sanusi II”.
The silence is disturbed by chanting. The doors are flung open and in glides Sanusi. “Sorry for being late,” he says. It is past 9pm. “I had not been informed you had arrived.” He speaks in an impeccable English of the sort that has withered in Britain itself. In the flesh, he’s wearing a simple white robe, his head covered with a Yasser Arafat-style headscarf.
Sanusi during his coronation in Kano in 2015 © Reuters
We move to the dining room, which is decorated in pale yellow. A table has been set and silver tureens are arranged along one wall. Oddly, for a house with dozens of servants, we are to serve ourselves. Sanusi, quite familiar with Lunch with the FT, describes the food. “This is waina,” he explains, pointing to some puffy bread. “W-A-I-N-A. It’s made from rice. The rice is ground. It’s then made into paste and fried in oil. And it goes with a vegetable soup.”
“This is tuwo shinkafa,” he continues, using a Hausa word for snow-white balls of pounded rice. He proceeds through each tureen: chicken and spinach curry, green soup, plantains, white rice and, of course, the orange jollof rice, without which no Nigerian feast is complete.
Muhammadu Buhari. “The thing about the ‘missing billions’ is you’re never going to find them in one place,” he says, explaining that much of the money was dissipated in complex arbitrage, invoice and subsidy scams.
Jonathan and the governor of Kano were adversaries. Any enemy of Jonathan’s was a friend of the governor. Sanusi got the nod. “As a Muslim, we believe that God decides who will be emir,” he explains, dipping his heavy silver spoon into the elegant soup bowl. “Then he creates a situation such that circumstances conspire to lead to that predetermined result.”
It hits me how strange this encounter is. This is possibly the only time in my life I’ll sit down with a man who believes he was selected by God. It is like dropping in for a bite with the Sun King. If God relies on the machinations of Nigerian politics to bring about his will, I muse, then he really does work in mysterious ways. Divinely chosen or not, Sanusi is in no doubt he deserves it.
A horse belonging to the the Emir of Kano © David Pilling
“It’s not for me to say,” he adds, before proceeding, “but the kingmakers look at a number of qualities. I spent my life as a successful banker. I taught economics at the university. I worked at an investment bank. I was chief risk officer in the two largest banks in the country. I was the CEO of the oldest and largest commercial bank in Nigeria, First Bank. I was the best central bank governor four years out of five. Why would I feel guilty about inheriting privilege? I have earned my stars in every competitive environment.” With a CV like that, God could hardly have said no.
Sanusi is part of the 25m-strong Fulani ethnic group who live across a tract of the Sahel and West Africa. Primarily Muslim, they trace their roots to North Africa and the Middle East. His line of emirs dates from the jihad waged by Usman dan Fodio, born in 1754, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, which overran much of what is today northern Nigeria. Kano had been founded in the 10th century. The palace we’re in was built five centuries later. “I’m the 57th king, but I’m the 14th Fulani emir and the 13th in my line.”
He scans the ornate surroundings. “I grew up here. My father was a crown prince but he was a career diplomat, so I was brought up by a guardian.” He was sent to Catholic primary school in the nearby city of Kaduna and went on to King’s College Lagos, the Ahmadu Bello University and later the International University of Africa in Khartoum. “I have the benefit of having been in and out of this culture, knowing all the traditions of the palace, but also mixing in a more heterogeneous setting.”
It feels empty, I say. Who else lives here? “You’d be surprised. You’ve got some princesses, my grandfather’s sisters, my cousins, my father’s sisters, my nieces. Then we’ve got the wives and concubines of previous emirs who chose to stay here. And you’ve got the help and their families. Historically, you had slaves in the palace, and they’re now basically part of the families. So they’re there. They literally call themselves ‘the slaves of kings’. They use that word, but you don’t buy or sell or own them.”
For a self-proclaimed modernist, I say, “isn’t this all a bit . . . ” — I fumble for the word — “medieval?”
“It’s important for us to retain our history, to retain our roots. But the books, you see, are not medieval.” Later, he directs me to some volumes from his “Marxist days”, including the Collected Works of Vladimir Lenin.
“A lot of my writings are progressive. I’ve been involved in such debates as why it is OK to cut off the hand of a man who stole a goat, but allow a governor or a minister who stole millions to get away with it.” That hardly makes him a Trotskyite. “People think I’m radical, but I’m not,” he says, pouring us both some blood-red hibiscus juice. “In Sudan, they call it kerkede.” It’s sweet with a subtle tartness.
“My daughter wants to be the next emir of Kano, and she’s disappointed I’ve not yet appointed a woman to the Kano Emirate Council.” Couldn’t she be emir, I ask, prompting a giggle. “It’s got to be incremental, without necessarily turning the society on its head,” he says, adding that perhaps his granddaughter or great-granddaughter could take the position. Sanusi has seven daughters and five sons.
“That is the greatest challenge for us. How are you a custodian of a legacy, of a history, of a culture? And how do you also serve as a guide as that culture navigates its way in a modern world?”
It seems a good time to broach his marital arrangements. As we help ourselves to another round of food — I go for the curry and a tennis-sized ball of pounded rice — I inquire which of his wives prepared the food. “OK, I have four wives,” he says, clarifying that his fourth is still at university and won’t join him at the palace until she has graduated. “I believe this came from two of the wives,” he says.
