By Vera Chinonso Aliyu and Ishola Adeleke, YeyeNews.com, October 9, 2021
Former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has accused the Kano state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, of dethroning him because he refused to grant the governor’s request to marry his teenage daughter. The accusation was made by Sanusi during an early morning workout with some top political functionaries in Lagos, a source privy to the discussions told YeyeNews.com.
“We were at this high-end gym in Ikoyi and Sanusi was doing his regular push-ups. He was somewhere between 15 and 20 when he suddenly stopped and called all of us together. He started telling us how he will do anything to protect his family. It was then he revealed that he lost his throne because he did not give his daughter out in marriage to Ganduje. It was hard for us to believe until he showed us a video of a meeting where the governor was pleading with him to approve the marriage. We were all shocked.”
However, the governor denied the allegation when YeyeNews.com contacted his office for his response. Through his special adviser on media, the governor described the allegation as mere figments of the Emir’s imagination. “You know that the former Emir has a fecund imagination,” the adviser added. “So, he is prone to come up with these kinds of illusory claims. You are aware that Sanusi secretly married an 18-year-old girl. He thinks everyone is like that. It’s unfortunate but the truth is that the governor was never interested in marrying Sanusi’s daughter.”
A top official of the Kano Hisbah police told YeyeNews.com reporter that there is nothing wrong if the governor wanted to marry the former Emir’s daughter. “The Emir knows that the governor is at liberty to marry the girl. Why did he refuse to approve the marriage, especially when he himself had earlier married an 18-year-old girl? That is hypocrisy. You can’t be preaching girl child education on one hand and on the other hand marry a teenage girl, and still turnaround to deny another person the same pleasure when it comes to your own daughter. The governor should have not just dethroned him but should have gone ahead to marry the girl by force. He has the authority, and we would have fully supported him too.”
But residents of Kano have expressed mixed reactions on the allegation. While some supported the actions of the governor, others felt that marrying off teenagers should be totally discouraged in the north. “Both men have children that are older than the girls they have married or wanted to marry,” one civil servant in the state told YeyeNews.com reporter. “It is not fair to the girls who would be deprived of the fun of their teenage years. These old men should learn to keep their libido in check.”
