“Your Highness,” Nadawaki Aminu said, showing obeisance to his best friend, the late emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, sometime in 1963, “I seek your indulgence hold my title of Ciroman Kano but to remain out of Kano in solidarity to my father.”
Nadawaki Aminu’s father, the deposed emir of Kano Sir Muhammadu Sanusi was barely a year after his banishment to Azare, following his deposition. I think all his children at that time never paid homage to their father’s successor, Emir Muhammadu Inuwa.
Two major princes touted to succeed their father after his deposition were Ciroman Kano Aminu Sanusi (known then as Nadawaki Aminu), the father of the current emir, and his brother Ado Sanusi, the then Dan Iyan Kano.
The powerbrokers who deposed Sir Sanusi at the time wanted to further antagonize the deposed ruler by not appointing any of his sons to succeed him. They opted for Sir Sanusi’s much older uncle, Muhammadu Inuwa, who died a few months after, paving way for the then Ambassador Ado Bayero to be recalled from Senegal to take the throne.
“We allow you to go with the title,” Emir Ado Bayero told Ciroman Kano, Nadawaki Aminu.
Since then, palace historians said, Nadawaki Aminu never spent three months without coming to Kano to pay homage to the late Emir Ado Bayero.
“He would come from Kaduna, pass the night at Kura or Dawakin Kudu and then proceed to Kano in order to pay homage to Emir Ado Bayero.
“What he hardly did was spending the night in Kano. In rare cases, he spent a night at Chiranchi to greet relations,” a palace expert told me.
According to him, Emir Sanusi’s father was Emir Ado Bayero’s best friend. “They were best of friends. That was the reason this emir grew up in the hand of late Emir Ado Bayero.
“And that was the reason Lamido Bobuwa (the current emir) married Ado Bayero’s daughter,” he said.

The general belief that the late Emir Ado Bayero allowed the father of the present emir with the Ciroman Kano title till death, despite refusal to pay homage and pledge allegiance to him is, however, not true.
Although it was a public knowledge that Emir Sanusi II had plans to strip Lamido Ado Bayero of Ciroman Kano title, Wamban Kano’s statement yesterday sparked both indifference and outrage.
Is Emir Sanusi right to strip Lamido Ado Bayero of Ciroman Kano title? Frankly I will say no. For the royals, becoming emir is the zenith of earthly pleasure, and any other title – however plum – is just an ornament. What is Chiroman Kano title that no less an emir than emir of Kano would worry about?
Even if the title matters much to the operation of the emirate, the circumstances that led to Ciroma’s hard luck during the race for the throne, his sacking as managing director of Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, should have melt a compassionate heart to let him go of the title – at least on compassionate ground.
Of course the Emirate Council wrote to Lamido Ado Bayero several times previously to come and bear his responsibilities as Ciroman Kano and District Head of Gwale.
Lamido neither replied nor appeared in person.
But how do you expect him forget the circumstances easily? If Lamido Ado Bayero could not come to Kano to bury his foster father, the late Galadiman Kano Tijjani Hashim, who raised him, schooled him, built a house for him and married off his daughter to him, I doubt if Emir Sanusi’s penchant for allegiance could.
Is Ciroman Kano part of the symbols of authority that Emir Sanusi would worry? The title is not anything close to the the knife of justice (wukar yanka) or twin spears (tagwayen masu) or Emir Dabo’s hat (malafar Dabo) or ostrich plumage shoes (takalmin jimina).
Tittle holder of Ciroman Kano will neither enjoy the shade of the parasol nor the velvety of the throne nor the fan of the figini nor the beat of the tambourine nor the clarion of the trumpet. No one but an emir enjoys this hype.
This is where I fault Emir Sanusi