NEW KANO EMIRATES: Ganduje victimizing Emir Sanusi over 2019 elections —Moghalu

A presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) in the 2019 election, Kingsley Moghalu, has criticised Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje’s action against Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi’s throne.

The Kano governor had on Wednesday signed into law a bill that created four additional emirates in the state, leaving Emir Sanusi in control of only 10 of the 44 local government areas in the state.

But speaking at an event on Friday, Moghalu decried the development, saying that Ganduje allegedly balkanized and bastardised the throne of Sanusi in order to quash an independent voice.

Sanusi is believed to have played a neutral role in the state during the March 9 governorship election, which Ganduje managed to win through a supplementary election that was marred with several electoral irregularities.

There have been speculations that the development in the state was meant to punish Sanusi for his independent voice in the state’s electoral process.

Moghalu, who spoke on the matter at the Sikiru Kayode Adetona third annual professorial chair lecture, held at Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, condemned the situation where traditional rulers are appointed by politicians in governance.

He wants traditional rulers to be selected by the citizens and not governors.

“We have seen something happened recently in Kano State, that is the emir of Kano’s throne has been balkanized and bastardised. We know why; it is to quash an independent voice, so this raises the question of the roles of traditional rulers.

“The government should no longer appoint traditional rulers. Let the traditional rulers be selected by their community and recognised by the government.

“In a restructured Nigeria, with a new constitution, traditional rulers should have a formal role, that is, advisory roles. This is what we should do. We cannot make traditional rulers errand boys for politicians and when they refuse to play that role we begin to play around with them,” he said.

The YPP presidential candidate, who spoke on a lecture entitled, ‘Grassroot governance: The soft underbelly of Nigeria’s political architecture,’ posited that without good leadership, there will never be  good governance.

“We need to empower our people to demand good governance, accountability.

READ ALSO: Court halts splitting of Kano Emirate

“Without restructuring Nigeria, It will be very difficult to get local governance in Nigeria. What we should do is that there should be two tiers of governance in Nigeria; the national government and the sub-national government where the latter can then create whatever structure they deem appropriate at the local level.

“The question of constitutional restructuring must be addressed. We as citizens, who elected them, should take responsibility for the failure of our government because if you want a restructured Nigeria, then you should vote for a government that believes that Nigeria is not working and needs constitutional restructuring.

“The reason we are still missing it in over 60 years is that we still haven’t got good leadership,” he said.

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