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The North: Sardauna’s Fading Legacy By Garba A. Isa
Northern Nigeria was the host region for the 19th Century Islamic State or Caliphate of Sokoto and the Islamic State of Borno. The last Sultan of Sokoto Attahiru was defeated by the colonial forces in 1903. Before its demise, the Caliphate had a well established Islamic structure and well articulated trade and commerce. The people of the emirate were also largely well-versed in Islamic education. The Ajami (Arabic script in Hausa language) was well-rooted, while the Maliki (Shari’a) legal system was elaborately in use. The erosion of these legal, political and cultural values by the British colonialists, impacted negatively in Northern Nigeria and by implication, the outlook of the current federation.
It was within this setting that Alhaji (Sir) Ahmadu Bello, the late Sardauna (the captain of the Sultan’s Body Guards) of Sokoto and the former Premier of the defunct Northern region was born in Rabah village some 32 kilometres west of Sokoto town in 1910. After a taste of local Qur’anic school system under the “shade of trees” the young “Ahmadu Rabah” as he was fondly called in his formative years, was sent to modern primary school in Sokoto. He was a descendant of the house of “Fodio” father of the 19th Century West African Revivalist, Sheikh Usman DanFodio (1744-1817) and the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. This Caliphal root was later to shape both the private and public life of the late Ahmadu Bello (1910-1966).
Ahmadu Bello trained at the famous Katsina college opened in 1922 by the then colonial Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir Hugg Clifford. The high academic standard and discipline of the college greatly helped to further shape the personality of Ahmadu Bello first as a teacher in Sokoto (where he was first appointed on a salary of £60 per annum) and as a politician. Ahmadu Bello was later to become the district head of Rabah, a post once held by his late father who died in 1916. His first contact wit politics began following his appointment as a councillor with the Sokoto Native authority, where he did his best to improve the local police, prison and other organs under his control. Thanks to his articulation, the North did well at the “Nigeria Meeting” called in the western city of Ibadan by the then colonial Governor of Nigeria Sir John Macpherson for constitutional review. He was elected to represent Sokoto at the defunct Northern House of Assembly in 1949. Unlike in the Sardauna’s delegates to the Ibadan constitutional conference, the North’s delegates to the Constitutional conference called by the late General Sani Abacha in the mid-1990s went literally ill-prepared. The southern delegates stole the show: Critical decisions inimical to the North were taken such as on Presidential rotation, Revenue sharing, Shari’a, Secularism, government and Pilgrimage among others. The annulled presidential election of June 1993 believed to have been won by the late MKO Abiola and the so-called North’s political domination since the country’s independence in 1960, were some of the bargain chips used against the North at the constitutional conference. Former president Obasanjo’s so-called constitutional conference in the mid 2000 on the other hand, failed amidst charges of bias on the part of the former president. While it lasted, the Obasanjo botched conference was rancorous. It is always convenient to accuse the North of monopolising power while ignoring the fact that the region largely holds the ceremonial leadership while others hold the live-wire of the system i.e. the federal civil service and the economy which gives a deceptive picture of the national outlook.
Despite his oft-controversial personality and the deep love for his Islamic Faith, the Sardauna was a unifying force to the various ethnic and religious groups in the defunct North. He helped developed several non-Muslim personalities through his policy of fair play: notably, the late ambassador Jolly Tanko Yusuf, Professor Ishaya Abdu, Michael Abdu Buba and Christopher Abashiya among others. The late Chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum Chief Sunday Awoniyi was a different brand of Northern Christian exceptionally close to the Sardauna. Those who called Awoniyi “Sardauna Karami” or “little Sardauna” were right in the sense that although separated by religion, they were very close in the Northern government and similar in humility, integrity and selfless leadership. This is a big lesson for us in the region and indeed the entire nation. Those who use religion to settle old personal scores must be doing a great disservice to the legacy of the Sardauna and the likes of Sunday Awoniyi, Yahaya Gusau and others.
Several Northern elites today betrayed the legacy of the Sardauna by choosing the path of self enrichment at the expense of the people. This degeneration has led to the lost of the high esteem with which the North was held. The region is in disarray with virtually no single leader worth rallying around particularly with the recent demise of Chief Awoniyi. The North is today a sleeping giant and a laughing stock. Several land mark legacies of Sardauna have suffered from neglect, are off their set goals or simply ghosts of their former selves: the defunct Bank of the North (courtesy of Obasanjo and Soludo), Ahmadu Bello Universty (ABU) Zaria (which today has more students and lectures from outside the region), Kaduna Polytechnic (taken over by the Federal Government of Ibrahim Babangida with no visible compensation), NNDC and the New Nigerian Newspapers among others. Years of sustained campaign which began since Obasanjo’s military leadership and continued into his civilian presidency have turned the North’s most vocal voice Radio Kaduna, into a ghost of its former self.
Ahmadu Bello’s love for his Muslim North, his dearest constituency, was demonstrated when he succumbed to regional pressure to stay on to serve as a regional minister of works instead of a higher profile post of central minister in the then federal capital Lagos, down south. Because of Sardauna’s unifying role and the region’s homogeneity, the North somewhat operated a sort of party less politics for years under the ‘Northern block’ before the eventual birth of the Northern Peoples Congress the NPC political party. Even the radical opposition party, the Northern Elements Progressive Union, the NEPU of the late politician, Mallam Aminu Kano, was largely a result of the opposition to the oppressive aspects of the Native administrative machinery than a real ideological divergence with the Sardauna who became the premier on the first of October 1954.
The late Sardauna of Sokoto and the premier of the defunct Northern region was a morally sound, modest, firm and incorruptible leader who combined “Work and Worship” in a very comfortable mix. His Pan Islamic influence spread beyond the Nigerian borders. Former president of the Gambia, Sir Dawda Jawara converted to Islam following his meeting with the Sardauna. The late Sarduna of Sokoto was killed by a band of largely Igbo soldiers on the fateful Friday 15th January, 1966 under the guise of a so-called revolution. A true revolution could not be selective in its punishments. The Nzeougu-led group was simply an assassination outfit. The counter coup of July 1966 and the subsequent civil war (1967-1970) were seen by many as the wrath of God which befall the perpetrators of the January 1966 genocide. The late Sardauna once said: “....there is a saying ‘those who dig for evil should dig short. After all, they may themselves fall into the ditch’. Let us remember that”
Garba A. Isa
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