Emir Lamido : Travails of an aristocratic activist

By Joseph Edgar… The Emir is blunt, deep and knowledgeable. He suffers no fools and speaks with the arrogance that comes with robust intellect. Ever since he was thrown into the public space, first as the Managing Director of one of the major banks, and subsequently the governor of the Central Bank (CBN), his activism has continued to elicit varied reactions from the public. He has been a trend setter and has continued to ‘behave in a way not befitting of his position’. Today, he is the Emir of kano, a very revered position and has continued with challenging the status quo and doing things his predecessors would never dare.

Recently, he took to the rostrum and gave the northern establishment a bashing. He never said anything we did not know. The relative poverty of the North was dropped squarely at the feet of its leadership. There ranged from its poor infrastructural situation, its terrible health indices to the social malaise that has made it, according to him, the poorest region in the world. This, as expected, has rankled the fur of the elites. He has been branded a big mouth and much more seriously, he is now being probed.

They have accused him of spending money recklessly in the midst of the same poverty he has been railing about. They are even considering unleashing the EFCC on him as a prelude to a possible dethronement which would be repeating history since his grandfather was said to have suffered the same fate.

Read also: Not Against The Run Of Play

All these in my mind’s eye expose the dirty behind of the northern establishment, thereby, further supporting Emir Sanusi’s tirade. The question there is that, if the Emir hadn’t broken the sacred code of silence and exposed the hypocrisy of the leaders would he be facing this stress. The answer is a big no. If he had just kept quiet and went about his royal business without ruffling feathers we would not have even know that the Emirate council was this wealthy. It would have been business as usual for all concerned. This naked hypocrisy is to say the least annoying. Rather than address the very belligerent issues the Emir has been screaming about and look for a realistic and pragmatic solution, all energies are being thrown at exposing his wrong doings.

This is exactly the issue with our leaders, the bane of our continued underdevelopment and the reason why not only the North is poor but the whole country. Our leaders are only interested in their debilitating and nauseating interests. What exactly did the Emir say that was not true? Is it a lie that a simple disease like meningitis has killed about 1,000 people to the point that a sitting governor rendered helpless by his own incompetence fell on an archaic explanation blaming, of all things, fornication. How he arrived at that is a mystery i am yet to resolve.

Well, since i do not control any emirate funds and also do not have a throne to be deposed from, i will throw my support to the Emir and would lead a southern protest movement to support his emirship. It is people like this Emir that we need in this country, one who has not allowed the priviledge and luxury that comes with his noble standing to blind his eyes to the continuous elitist pilfering and subjugation of the poor people of our nation.

I support this Emir.

RipplesNigeria ….without borders, without fears

Click here to download the Ripples Nigeria App for latest updates

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now