Jonathan, Emir Sanusi Meet, Iron Out Differences

PHOTO CREDIT: PREMIUM TIMES
PHOTO CREDIT: PREMIUM TIMES

After nearly a year of frosty relations, President Goodluck Jonathan and the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammad Sanusi II, met Thursday in Abuja and ironed out their differences with both leaders pledging to work together in the national interest.

Sanusi, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, was suspended from office by the president in February over alleged financial improprieties but the former banker insisted his blowing the whistle on the purported unremitted $20 billion oil revenue got him into the presidency’s bad books.

After leaving office, Mr. Sanusi was appointed the Emir of Kano in June in a move interpreted as a deft political calculation by the Kano State Governor, Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the All Progressives Congress, APC, who was also waging his own political battles against the Presidency.

The former CBN governor’s open romance with leading members of the opposition APC did not make his ascension to one of the most powerful traditional stools in Nigeria sit down well with the Presidency, which ordered the emir’s palace sealed for days with fears that an order was out for his arrest should he ever step out of the Government House, Kano, where he took refuge.

However, the emir reportedly initiated peace moves, and the two men met for the first time in July during the tradition breaking of Ramadan fast, a yearly routine in which the president meets top government Muslim officials and other prominent Islamic leaders in the country.

Fast forward to Thursday, Emir Sanusi and President Jonathan, according to PREMIUM TIMES, met at the State House, Abuja, essentially for reconciliation.

The emir was reportedly accompanied to the reconciliation meeting by all senior members of the Kano Emirate council, while Vice President Namadi Sambo, the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd), Attorney General, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), and the Foreign Affairs Minister, Amb. Aminu Wali also attended the meeting.

Sources privy to details of the meeting say the president sued for peace, and announced that he held no grudges against the emir and that he had forgotten everything that transpired between them.

In return, Mr. Sanusi also preached peace saying he too had let go of the past.

The president and the emir later went into a private meeting that lasted for roughly 15 minutes, the report by PREMIUM TIMES said.

Mr. Sanusi and his entourage left for Kano shortly after the meeting.

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