Kano's emir Sanusi Mohammed dismisses suggestions Hausa-Fulani's hate Igbo settlers

EMIR of Kano Alhaji Mohammed Sanusi II has dismissed claims that the Fulani oligarchy in the city has any axe to grind with the Igbo community saying that both ethnic groups have lived happily together for decades.

 

Ever since Nigeria's independence in 1960, there have been frequent clashes between the Hausa-Fulani indigenes of Kano and its migrant Igbo trading community. In 1966, these tensions boiled over into full-scale pogroms, which eventually led to the Nigerian Civil War that left about 2m dead.

 

Of late, there has been some ethnic tension in Kano but Emir Sanusi has said they are just skirmishes, adding that the Hausa community has no axe to grind with the Igbo settlers. He pointed out that Kano had for decades been accommodating and still accommodates Ndigbo without grudge, animosity and rancour.

 

Addressing members of the Abia State Council of Chiefs, led by its chairman, Ebere Chidik, Emir Sanusi said the time had come for both communities to appreciate the peculiar interest of each other, adding that there was no justifiable basis for them to antagonise one another. According to the emir, all the misapprehension, animosity and rancour were the handiwork of rabble-rousers, whose intention was to cause disaffection in a cosmopolitan city, like Kano.

 

He stressed that  Ndigbo have been embraced and treated equally in virtually all spheres of human endeavour. In addition, the emir also said Ndigbo have since carved a niche in all spheres of business endeavour  in the commercial city of Kano, affirming that if their host community had been hostile, they would have found it difficult to co-exist.