Shock, Applause Greet Ganduje’s Recognition Of Mohammad Sanusi II As Emir Of Kano

By Suleiman Anyalewechi

Indications that the 15th factional Emir of Kano , Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero may have been actually sacrificed on the alter of political expediency emerged on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, following what appears to be an open endorsement and acknowledgement of the reinstated 16th factional Emir Mohammad Sanusi II by the immediate past Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.

The Source reports that Dr Ganduje, who was also the immediate past National Chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress APC, had, in 2020, installed Emir Bayero, after dethroning then Sanusi as the 14th Emir of the Kano Emirate.

However, the tide was to change on Thursday, May 23, 2024, with incumbent Governor Abba  Yusuf reinstating Sanusi as the 16th Emir after deposing Bayero  whose father, late Ado Bayero the 13th Emir, Sanusi had succeeded in 2016.

Interestingly, Emir Bayero, who was outside the State at the time of his deposition, apparently goaded by Federal might, through some powerful forces from Kano including Ganduje, then National Chairman of the APC, made a somewhat triumphant entry into Kano after refusing to accept his purported dethronement.

He has since then been engaged in a bitter struggle with Sanusi over the ultimate control of the Emirate throne, with the two laying claims to the throne.

While Emir Sanusi with the support of the Kano State Government occupies the Kofar Kudu main Palace in the City, Bayero with the assistance of federal might holds court at the mini palace in Nasarawa area of the Kano metropolis.

The legal battles by the two contending forces to determine the ultimate occupier of the throne were only recently adjourned to March 2027 by the Supreme Court in what has been described as the longest adjournment in recent judicial history.

Not a few observers of the festering royal rumble, however, blamed the long Supreme Court’s adjournment on the need to safeguard the political interests of President Bola Tinubu in the swing state of Kano ahead of the 2027 polls.

Although known to have deployed all known Federal Government apparatus to support and sustain Emir Bayero in the face of the Kano state Government onslaught, the recent political realignment in the  State may have considerably altered the equation much to the advantage of Emir Sanusi.

The defection of Governor Yusuf from his original political nest- the New Nigeria Peoples Party NNPP to the APC, inevitably, brought him in the same camp with the president and Dr Ganduje, two principal actors sustaining Emir Bayero.

Not a few plaudits and close watchers of the battle for the Kano Emirate throne are of the strong belief that Emir Bayero may have been sacrificed and Sanusi wholly accepted as the only recognised Emir by all the forces

At the occasion of the swearing-in ceremony of  Murtala Sule Garo as the new Deputy Governor of Kano held at Government House on Tuesday, Ganduje, for the first time since the outbreak of the royal hostilities in 2024, publicly addressed Sanusi as the “Emir of Kano, and Chairman of the State Council of Traditional Rulers.

While reading his address at the occasion, Ganduje observed and accorded Sanusi all the honours due him as the Emir. His action elicited thunderous applause from guests at the occasion.

Instructively, the gesture marked the first time the former Governor will be addressing Sanusi in that manner since 2020 when he dethroned him .