Understanding Northern politics is a very complicated thing especially when you realize the country has been ruled by the North more than any other region in Nigeria’s history, which boasts of the best intellectuals there is, in the country.
Until Sanusi’s dethronement, much of the noise has been about a potential third term ambition by President Buhari, and the North’s unwillingness to cede power to the South in 2023.
Despite growing tension and uneasiness in the South over which region produces the next President, the North sees things quite differently. It simply is not ready to zone the Presidency to the South irrespective of whatever pact it signed in the past. But how it intends to keep power up there despite all the wranglings and threats of disintegration should the North try to play smart, is something the South should be wary of.
Sanusi’s dethronement and the sympathy his ordeal accrued especially from Southerners, is believed to be a gimmick toward a much bigger cause.
While Sanusi is yet to declared interest in 2023 presidential race, Southern political commentators who will not want to be outsmarted by the North, are already raising alarm.
However, should the dethroned Emir decides to run for President, the one biggest obstacle he’d have to overcome, is Buhari himself.
Buhari has been heavily linked with Sanusi’s dethronement, and with Buhari’s notorious style of leadership, it would take something extraordinary for Sanusi to become the next president unless the recent revelations on Buhari’s relationship with the Emir, is completely false.
National Pivoted previously reported that Chairman of the reconciliatory committee set up in 2019 to intervene in the feud between Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and Sanusi, has expressed his disappointment over the failure of his team’s efforts to settle the situation despite submitting the committee’s report to the President.
Abdulsalami Abubakar while speaking in an interview with Voice of America (VOA) Hausa on Sanusi’s dethronement, said he doesn’t understand why he was made to waste his time working on a solution that ended up being only good for Buhari’s baggage bin.
He said, “In my view (on the unfortunate turn of events after he submitted his team’s report to the president), all the committee’s efforts are wasted.
“After conclusion of the assignment, we realised that there was amicable resolution to the crisis. Surprisingly, this is what happened at last,” Abubakar said.
“Before I left the country, we submitted our report to him (Buhari), and he expressed willingness to intervene in the matter in order to have amicable resolution…,I really don’t know if he had intervened, ” he added.
While opinions are divided on Buhari’s involvement in an affair Kwankwaso said is non of his business, a claim made by second Republic parliamentarian, Junaid Mohammed, a few months ago, has given a powerful hint on what the whole thing is likely about, and it’s far massive than other hypothesis out there.
According to Junaid per Daily Post, the former Emir, Muhammadu Sanusi II, had lobbied to be Vice President to Prof. Yemi Osinbajo when President Muhammadu Buhari spent several months in London in 2017 on a sick leave for an undisclosed ailment.
Junaid claimed that Sanusi is one of many who never expected Buhari to survive his illness, and had began working on succeeding him.
He said, “Once Buhari was sick, very sick in England, he went to Osinbajo, this current Emir Sanusi; he was sure that Buhari was going to di*. And if Buhari di*s, he would like Osinbajo to consider him as a vice president, even though on the surface, he belonged to no party.
“He wanted Osinbajo to consider him as vice president! Now, anybody with any sense of logic, any sanity would not countenance this kind of thing. If for whatever reason, this issue was reported to Buhari, if Buhari were another leader, he would have GOT RID OF HIM IN A JIFFY.”
Well the words ‘GOT RID OF Him (Sanusi) IN A JIFFY’ is probably the answer everyone has been looking for. This however, does not in any way ascribe credibility to Junaid’s assertion. But should Junaid’s claim be credible, it would be quite interesting to see how Sanusi would succeed Buhari as the number one citizen of the country.
