The hearing on the Kano Emirates tussle has begun at the Federal High Court complex sitting at Court Road in Kano, with security personnel heavily present in and around the facility.

Punch Online reports that the nationwide strike over the new minimum wage affected the hearing on the restraining order against the reinstatement of Muhammadu Sanusi II as the 16^th Emir by the Kano government last Thursday, but it was shifted to today.

It would be recalled that a Federal High Court in Kano had issued an order stopping the Kano State Government from enforcing the Kano State Emirate Council Repeal Law.

Justice Mohammed Liman granted the order in an application by Aminu Babba Dan Agundi, the Sarkin Dawaki Babba of the Kano Emirate.

At the resumed hearing on Thursday, officers of the Nigeria Police Force and operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) strategically positioned their vehicles around the court to forestall a breakdown of law and order and to restrict movement.

Cars, vehicles and motorbikes are currently being diverted from Court Road to Zoo Road and the Gyadi-Gyadi area of the town pending the hearing of the case.

Recall that the crisis in the state started two weeks ago when the Kano State governor, Abba Yusuf, deposed Ado Bayero as the Emir of Kano, alongside four other first-class Emirs of Rano, Bichi, Karaye and Gaya.

He reinstated Lamido Sanusi as the Emir following the repeal of the law that former Kano state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, used to depose and exile him in 2020.

In 2020, Sanusi, the then-14^th Emir of Kano, was removed for alleged insubordination to the Abdullahi Ganduje-led government and in his place, Bayero was installed as his successor.

The former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria was also exiled to Awe, an agrarian community in Nasarawa State, on the orders of Ganduje.

However, in a bid to reinstate Sanusi, the state House of Assembly, which is controlled by the New Nigeria Peoples Party, passed the Kano State Emirate Council (Repeal) Bill 2024, which replaced the Kano State Emirates Council Law, 2019.

The law dissolved all the five emirate councils in the state – Bichi, Karaye, Gaya, Rano; including Kano, created by Ganduje. (The PUNCH)

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