“It is for this reason that we cannot afford to spend all our time talking about the past. It is time to look at what we are doing now and ask ourselves if the fiscal stance and monetary stance are the appropriate stances for the situation we are in. I hope people will have the courage to know that loyalty is about telling your boss the truth,” – Emir of Kano, Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
The news that Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the present Emir of Kano took a new wife as his fourth one naturally elicited some interests in the country. From comments, it is reasonable to assume that the fact that the new wife is eighteen year old added to the public interest.
Those who are critical of Mr. Sanusi’s fourth marriage to an eighteen year old range from the serious to the burlesque, while Sanusi himself and those who defend him like Murtada Gusau, Jafaar Jafaar appeal to religion, culture, polygyny and past obligation (this is Sanusi’s defence). Their defence is of particular interest because they imply that if Sanusi can show that his religion, culture and his obligation to the past allow it, then his choice is acceptable, sound and reasonable.
But while there may be a burden of privacy in Sanusi’s new marriage, which may require us to tread gently, we must also say that Mr. Sanusi is a public figure, and such scrutiny ought to be understandable for the progress of the Nigerian society. And this is more so because Nigeria is not a feudal state. We are presumably a liberal democratic society such that Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a public figure who comes across as a role model and who is being paid by public money. Based on this it was justified then and justified now to interrogate Sanusi because Nigeria does not run a feudal system.
There is a context to the interest generated by Mr. Sanusi’s marriage. He is an ex-Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria. As Central Bank Governor, he was also once accused of having an extra marital affair with a Central Bank Staff. Given the role religion and culture play in relativising what ought to be basic commonsensical social norms, one is not sure if religion, polygyny, obligation to a history and culture will also be said to validate and confer moral, legal, religious and cultural legitimacy on what was then Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s indiscretion before common sense and the law.
But while there may be a burden of privacy in Sanusi’s new marriage, which may require us to tread gently, we must also say that Mr. Sanusi is a public figure, and such scrutiny ought to be understandable for the progress of the Nigerian society. And this is more so because Nigeria is not a feudal state. We are presumably a liberal democratic society such that Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a public figure who comes across as a role model and who is being paid by public money. Based on this it was justified then and justified now to interrogate Sanusi because Nigeria does not run a feudal system.
Those who defend Mr. Sanusi’s right to take a fourth wife who is eighteen year old appeal to religious, historical and cultural relativism. Sanusi himself in taking his new bride appealed to a historical past he must fulfill! Curiously, Sanusi who used an obligation to a historical past to explain and legitimise his marriage to an 18 year old as an Emir, in a recent legitimate critique of President Buhari’s lack of an economic policy said:
“It is for this reason that we cannot afford to spend all our time talking about the past. It is time to look at what we are doing now…I hope people will have the courage to know that loyalty is about telling your boss the truth…”
Those were Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s exact words. It is strange how Sanusi could have gone into a past in September 2015 to take an 18 year old as wife and illegitimately justify that choice as an obligation to a past and the same Sanusi in October 2015 on another issue asked us correctly and legitimately to stop talking about the past! Can someone (based on Sanusi’s own criterion) tell Sanusi to stop using the past to justify the present in his questionable cultural practices? Can someone (using Sanusi’s own words) tell him the truth?
To appeal to relativism is extremely dangerous philosophically because such appeal calls to question the possibility of a common philosophical norm which relies on basic common sense rather than some antediluvian practices which are capable of detaining society’s progress.
But while the burden of privacy allows us to tread cautiously, appealing to cultural, historical and religious relativism in a multinational and, multi-religious country like Nigeria where the national question remains unresolved, unattended to and therefore remains inconclusive is unacceptable and wrong.
To appeal to relativism is extremely dangerous philosophically because such appeal calls to question the possibility of a common philosophical norm which relies on basic common sense rather than some antediluvian practices which are capable of detaining society’s progress. If relativists such as Jafaar Jafaar, Sanusi himself and clerics such as Murtada Gusau on these issues are right then we should continue the killing of twins, then it will be appropriate to mystify the death of the Ooni of Ife, Olubuse, as it was done when it was said that women could not see his dead body while pretending not to know that the same Ooni Olubuse could hypothetically have died in the hands of foreign female doctors in a foreign land!
The point here is that the irrationalisation and mystification of traditions, which mostly are class driven, is partly at the roots of the backwardness of many African societies, including Nigeria. Sadly the remnants of the feudal class, such as Emir Sanusi, the late Ooni Olubuse and others have their conscious and unconscious spokespersons in the public sphere, clerics and among the educated middle class elites. Unable to separate the dynamic nature of culture from the inert and static nature of tradition, in uncritical moment of mystification, they turn tradition to culture and deploy this to uphold and defend a practice, which is obviously a break on society.
Let us put it more starkly. To appeal to religion and culture outside the possibility of a common norm based on a socialised and humanised common sense as Jafaar Jafaar, the Cleric Murtada Gusau and Emir Sanusi himself have done is capable of conferring religious and cultural legitimacy (the same form of relativist legitimacy Jafaar Jafaar appealed to in his defence of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi) on Boko Haram and its pogrom. Now Jafaar Jafaar, Gusau and Sanusi cannot defend themselves and simply say “hey wait, but Boko Harm is not religion or culture…”
Based on how they have used religion and culture in a wooly, ahistorical and an uncritical manner to defend Sanusi, the question will be “who says Boko Haram is not religion and culture”? Having appealed to relativism, the question is how and why what Jafaar Jafaar, Gusau and Sanusi call religion is religion and Boko Haram is not? If Jafaar Jafaar, Gusau and Sanusi appeal to relativism, in defending Mr. Sanusi, what stops Boko Haram and their known and unknown sponsors from appealing to same relativism?
Boko Haram is the case partly (not solely) because of a philosophical denial of the possibility of a human norm based on common sense and reason – which is exactly the same philosophical pitfall of Emir Sanusi’s marriage to an 18 year old, its flawed defence by Sanusi himself and relativists such as Jafaar Jafaar and a cleric like Gusau.
But more importantly, in a century where the rest of the world is on their feet engaging serious challenges of the 21st century, endeavours led in many different fields by heroic women, it is only an idle and indolent libidinous feudal and middle class and their spokespersons that will celebrate the right to take wives – second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. regardless of their age, when there are major life threatening issues in our African and Nigerian societies, and the world.
And if religious, historical and cultural relativism are acceptable in Emir Sanusi’s case then, we must allow polyandry – the practice of a woman marrying more than one man. No eyes should be raised. This was once a legitimate historical and social practice. Beside its informal documentation in many of our African cultures and societies, Frederick Engels and Karl Marx documented this among non-African cultures and societies in their Book The Origins of Family, Private Property and The State.
But more importantly, in a century where the rest of the world is on their feet engaging serious challenges of the 21st century, endeavours led in many different fields by heroic women, it is only an idle and indolent libidinous feudal and middle class and their spokespersons that will celebrate the right to take wives – second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. regardless of their age, when there are major life threatening issues in our African and Nigerian societies, and the world.
A body of knowledge that is unable to critically introspect, submit itself to public scrutiny without appealing to easy relativism and unable to clean itself of stagnation is not deserving of survival in the 21st century
And if Mr. Sanusi’s practice, and its defence in Jafaar Jafaar and Gusau’s dangerous relativism is the dominant idea in our society, then this explains our backwardness and why Africa’s and Nigeria’s ruling elites and their middle class spokespersons are Africa’s and Nigeria’s problem.
Adeolu Ademoyo, aaa54@cornell.edu, is of the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
