In March 2020, one of Nigeria’s most powerful traditional rulers was suddenly removed from the throne.
Muhammadu Sanusi II, the outspoken Emir of Kano and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, was dethroned by the Kano State government and taken away from the city he had ruled as a traditional leader for six years.
The official explanation was insubordination.
But behind the palace walls was a much bigger question: was Sanusi’s removal simply about royal protocol, or had a long-running political confrontation finally reached its breaking point?
The answer remains contested. What is not in doubt is that the episode exposed the complicated relationship between Nigeria’s elected politicians and its traditional institutions.
And the story did not end with Sanusi’s removal.
Four years later, he would return to the throne.
The background: Who is Muhammadu Sanusi II?
Born on 31 July 1961 into the Fulani aristocracy of northern Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi grew up within one of the country’s most prominent traditional and political families.
Before becoming Emir, he built a reputation in finance and economics.
He worked in banking before becoming Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2009. His tenure brought him international attention, particularly after he raised allegations concerning billions of dollars in missing oil revenue.
In 2014, then-President Goodluck Jonathan suspended him as Central Bank governor.
Only months later, Sanusi’s life took another dramatic turn.
He was installed as the 14th Emir of Kano, succeeding the influential Emir Ado Bayero.
His appointment transformed him from a prominent financial technocrat into one of northern Nigeria’s most visible traditional leaders.
Timeline
1961: Muhammadu Sanusi II is born into the Fulani royal family in Kano.
2009: He becomes Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
2011: TIME magazine names him among its influential people.
2014: President Goodluck Jonathan suspends Sanusi as CBN governor after Sanusi raises allegations concerning missing oil revenues.
2014: Sanusi becomes the 14th Emir of Kano.
2019: Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje’s administration introduces legislation creating additional emirates across the state.
9 March 2020: The Kano State government removes Sanusi as Emir of Kano.
March 2020: Sanusi is taken to Awe in Nasarawa State after being removed from Kano.
2024: Governor Abba Yusuf’s administration repeals the 2019 emirate law and reinstates Sanusi as Emir of Kano.
2025: The Court of Appeal overturns a Federal High Court decision that had challenged the 2024 reinstatement.
2026: The dispute continues to shape Kano’s political and traditional landscape, with rival claims surrounding the emirate remaining a major constitutional and political issue.
What led to the 2020 confrontation?
The relationship between Sanusi and Governor Abdullahi Ganduje had become increasingly strained.
Sanusi was not a traditional ruler who kept completely outside public policy.
He frequently commented on economic and social issues affecting Kano, while the governor’s administration regarded some of his interventions as inappropriate interference in government affairs.
The disagreement became particularly visible around government policies and economic decisions.
Political tensions also intensified after the 2019 elections.
According to subsequent accounts of the dispute, Ganduje’s administration accused Sanusi of political activity and insubordination. The government then pursued legislation that divided the historic Kano Emirate into five separate emirates.
The move created new traditional institutions at Bichi, Rano, Gaya and Karaye while reducing the territorial authority of the Emir of Kano.
For Sanusi, this was more than an administrative change.
It fundamentally altered the institution over which he presided.
The official explanation
On 9 March 2020, the Kano State government announced Sanusi’s removal.
The government cited what it described as insubordination, disrespect for lawful instructions and conduct inconsistent with the responsibilities of the emirate.
The official position was therefore that Sanusi had failed to respect the authority of the state government and the institutions of government.
From this perspective, the matter was not supposed to be a political battle.
It was a question of discipline and the relationship between a traditional institution and a democratically elected government.
But few observers saw the episode as quite that simple.
The opposing interpretation
Sanusi’s supporters and critics of the government viewed his removal through a different lens.
They argued that the emir had become politically inconvenient.
Sanusi was unusually outspoken for a traditional ruler. He had enormous public visibility, considerable intellectual influence and a reputation for challenging powerful people.
His earlier career at the CBN had already demonstrated that he was prepared to confront political authorities when he believed public interests were at stake.
The theory among his supporters was therefore that the official language of “insubordination” concealed a deeper political struggle between the governor and an influential emir.
The creation of four additional emirates was particularly significant because it reduced Sanusi’s traditional authority before he was eventually removed altogether.
However, it is important to distinguish interpretation from established fact. There is no basis for presenting political retaliation as the government’s proven motive. What can be established is that the relationship between Ganduje and Sanusi had deteriorated badly and that the emirate restructuring preceded Sanusi’s deposition.
The banishment that shocked Kano
Sanusi’s removal was dramatic enough.
What followed made the episode even more controversial.
After being dethroned, he was taken to Awe in Nasarawa State.
His lawyers challenged the detention and described the banishment as an archaic practice.
The episode raised a fundamental question about the position of traditional rulers in a modern constitutional democracy.
Traditional institutions retain enormous cultural and social influence in Nigeria, but elected governments possess formal constitutional authority.
That creates an unusual balance of power.
An emir may command enormous respect among millions of people, but he does not govern a state in the constitutional sense.
Sanusi’s removal therefore became a particularly vivid example of the limits of traditional authority in modern Nigeria.
What happened after Sanusi left the throne?
Sanusi’s departure did not end the Kano emirate controversy.
The Ganduje administration appointed Aminu Ado Bayero, a son of the late Emir Ado Bayero, to the Kano throne.
The emirate remained divided.
Then Nigerian politics changed.
In 2023, Abdullahi Ganduje left the Kano governorship and eventually became national chairman of the All Progressives Congress.
Meanwhile, Abba Kabir Yusuf, backed by former Kano governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, won the Kano governorship.
The political balance had shifted.
In May 2024, the Kano State House of Assembly repealed the 2019 law that had created the five emirates.
Governor Yusuf signed the new legislation and dissolved the emirates created under Ganduje.
Sanusi was then reinstated as Emir of Kano.
The man who had been removed from the throne in 2020 was back in the palace four years later.
The extraordinary twist: two men, one throne
Sanusi’s return did not immediately settle the matter.
Aminu Ado Bayero rejected his removal and continued to claim the throne.
The result was one of the strangest episodes in modern Kano history: two rival claimants associated with the Kano emirship, each backed by competing political and legal arguments.
Sanusi occupied the main emir’s palace, while Ado Bayero established himself at a smaller palace in the Nasarawa area of Kano.
The dispute moved from palace politics into the courts.
In January 2025, the Court of Appeal overturned a Federal High Court ruling that had invalidated actions taken under Kano’s 2024 emirate law. The appellate court held that the Federal High Court lacked jurisdiction over the chieftaincy matter.
The legal dispute nevertheless continued to have political consequences.
The key players
Muhammadu Sanusi II
The central figure in the controversy.
A former CBN governor, economist and outspoken public intellectual, Sanusi brought an unusual combination of financial expertise, royal pedigree and political independence to the Kano throne.
Abdullahi Umar Ganduje
Kano governor from 2015 to 2023.
His administration removed Sanusi in 2020 and introduced the legislation that divided the Kano Emirate into five.
The relationship between Ganduje and Sanusi became the defining political conflict behind the 2020 palace crisis.
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
Former Kano governor and one of the most influential political figures in the state.
Kwankwaso had appointed Sanusi as Emir in 2014. His political influence remained important to the later reversal of Ganduje’s emirate reforms.
Abba Kabir Yusuf
Governor of Kano from 2023.
A political ally of Kwankwaso, Yusuf repealed the 2019 emirate law in 2024 and reinstated Sanusi.
Aminu Ado Bayero
Son of the late Emir Ado Bayero.
He became Emir of Kano after Sanusi’s deposition in 2020 and later challenged his removal following Sanusi’s reinstatement.
What the episode tells us about Nigeria
The Sanusi saga is bigger than one emir and one governor.
It illustrates an enduring tension in Nigeria’s political system.
Traditional rulers have no constitutional mandate to govern states, yet they can possess extraordinary influence over communities, religion, culture and public opinion.
Politicians, meanwhile, control the machinery of government.
The question is what happens when a powerful traditional ruler becomes politically difficult for an elected government.
Sanusi’s story provides one answer.
In 2020, the government removed him.
In 2024, another government restored him.
The throne changed hands not simply because of palace tradition, but because the political balance of Kano changed.
Why Sanusi’s removal still matters
The 2020 removal has become an important case study in the relationship between traditional authority and democratic government in Nigeria.
It demonstrated that even one of the country’s most powerful traditional rulers could be removed by a state government.
But the events of 2024 complicated that lesson.
Sanusi’s restoration showed that political power can also reshape traditional institutions in the opposite direction.
That is perhaps the most revealing part of the entire saga.
The Kano throne survived.
The personalities changed.
The laws changed.
The political alliances changed.
And the battle over who should occupy the palace became a window into a much larger question:
In modern Nigeria, who really holds power when the palace and the government disagree?
The answer, as Sanusi’s extraordinary journey from CBN governor to emir, from dethroned ruler to restored monarch demonstrates, is rarely as simple as the throne suggests.
Sources: BBC reporting on Sanusi’s 2020 removal; subsequent reporting and court records concerning the Kano emirate dispute; Premium Times’ historical and legal reporting.
