By Phenomenal.com,ng Editorial Team
Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, must be very angry now.
Why? He ordered the police to arrest the ‘dethroned’ Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, but they have refused to do so.
Not just that: the police have declared that they are out to protect Bayero, whom they still regard as the Emir of Kano.
Put differently, they do not recognise the state government’s own Emir, Muhammadu Sanusi, whom it reinstated after the House of Assembly repealed the 2019 law that got Bayero onto the revered throne.
So, Yusuf must be livid. The police defied his ‘with immediate effect’ order despite the fact that he reminded whoever cared to listen that he gave it as the ‘Chief Security Officer’ of the state.
Yet, beyond boiling with ire, he is also likely to be a bitt sober in a subtle corner of his powerful mind.
He must have reminded himself that, in Nigeria, he is the Chief Security Officer on paper, but, in reality, Abuja is the one calling the shots on security matters.
How he would wish the state police had come on board!
While pundits will again knock the contradictions in the country’s policing system, some are also likely to highlight the reason, if not the ‘excuse,’ given by the police in the Kano tango.
The police say they are protecting Bayero as the emir based on the court order that stopped Yusuf from implementing the new law, but which he ignored.
Of course, this raises the question of whether the governor was right to have flung away the order, to the extent that he called for sanctions against the judge who gave it, saying he (judge) was in the US when he ruled.
It would be childish to attempt an analysis of the situation without suspecting some federal interest or might – yet, one could only hope the governor too has not played into the adversity’s hand by toying with the legal pronouncement.
As powerful as ‘the Chief Security Officer’ is, does he have the might to select which court order to obey? It is understandable how intriguing a legal reaction to the order would have been, but that is what the law says and wants.
Now, the fact is that Yusuf may still have to go back to the route he refused to tread in the first place.
For, as things are, a legal war is the better solution since no one will wish Kano or any other part of the country any form of escalated crises.
