Aminu Kano
Aminu Kano (1920—April 17, 1983) was a Muslim politician from Nigeria.
In the 1940s he led a socialist movement in the northern part of the country in
opposition to British rule.[1] The Mallam
Aminu Kano International Airport
and the Aminu Kano Teaching
Hospital, both in Kano,
are named after him.
Life and early career
Aminu Kano was born to the family of
an Islamic scholar, Mallam Yusuf of the scholarly Gyanawa fulani clan, who was
a mufti
at the Alkali
court in Kano. He attended Katsina College and later went to the University of London's, Institute of Education, alongside Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He earned his teaching certificate after completing his
studies at Katsina
College and subsequently became a teacher; he started teaching at the Bauchi
training College.
While in Bauchi, he spoke freely on
political issues and extended his educational horizon by engaging in some various political and
educational activities beyond his formal teaching duties. He wrote a pamphlet,
'Kano, Under the Hammer of the Native Administration, and along with Balewa,
was a member of the Bauchi General Improvement Union. He was also a secretary
of the Bauchi Discussion Circle, a group whose activities were later
constricted as a result of an attack on indirect rule by Aminu Kano.[2] In 1948, he became the head of
the teacher training center in Maru, Sokoto
and was also the secretary of the Northern Teachers Association.
During this period, he established
an organization to improve the quality of Koranic schools in the north.
Pre-Independence and first republic
While in Sokoto, he became a member
of Jam'iyyar
Mutanen Arewa, a Northern Nigeria cultural
association that later evolved into a political party and became the dominant
party in Northern Nigeria during the Nigerian First
Republic. However, in 1950, he led a
splinter group of young radicals from Jam'iyyar Mutanen Arewa, and formed the Northern
Elements Progressive Union (NEPU). Notably, a few years earlier, an Igbira
man and trader, Habib Raji Abdallah had founded an organization called the
Northern Elements Progressive Association in Kano. The organization was founded
along the nationalistic political thoughts of Nnamdi Azikiwe.[3] In 1949, a few of Azikiwe's supporters were
jailed including Abdallah, leading to the breakup of the organization
Nevertheless, a new progressive
union led by Aminu Kano and composed of progressive leaning teachers and some
radical [intellectuals] such as Magaji Dambatta, Abba Maikwaru and Bello Ijumu
emerged to fill any vacuum in political radicalism in the region. The members
were largely connected together in their opposition to the management style of
the native administration in Northern Nigeria. In 1951, the party contested for
seats in the Kano primary elections and was fairly successful.
However, with
the formation of the Northern People's Congress, Mallam Aminu began to face
formidable challenges especially in two federal elections. In 1954, Aminu lost
a federal House of Representative seat to Maitama Sule and in 1956, he failed to clinch enough votes to win a seat
on the Northern Regional Assembly. It wasn't until the 1959 parliamentary election that he succeeded in gaining a major regional
seat. He won the Kano East federal seat as a candidate of NEPU, which was
already in alliance with the National
Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons.[4]
While in the Federal House of Representative, he was a deputy Chief Whip.
After the first republic was cut
short by a military coup.
Aminu Kano later served in the military government of General Yakubu Gowon as a federal commissioner for health.
Second republic
After 12 years, the military
government in September 1978, lifted its proscription of political parties. In the following months, five newly formed parties began
to emerge: the Nigerian People's
Party, the Unity Party of
Nigeria and three others. Among them was
the People's Redemption
Party, led by Aminu Kano, Sam Ikoku, and
Edward Ikem Okeke. The party leaned towards a populist framework and enjoyed
the support of prominent labor leaders such as Michael Imoudu.[5] In 1979, the party presented Aminu Kano as
its presidential candidate but he could not muster enough votes to win.
Nevertheless, the party won two gubernatorial seats.
Reformist ideas
Aminu Kano co-founded the Northern
Elements Progressive Union as a political platform to challenge what he felt
was the autocratic and feudalistic actions of the Native Northern Government. He geared his
attack on the ruling elite
including the emirs,
who were mostly Fulanis.
The potency of his platform was strengthened partly because of his background.
His father was an acting Alkali in Kano who came from a lineage of Islamic clerics, Aminu Kano also brought up Islamic
ideas on equity
in his campaign trails during the first republic. Many talakawas (commoners)
in Kano lined up behind his message and his political stature grew from the
support of the Kano commoners and migratory petty
traders in the north.[6] Many of
the tradesmen later manned the offices of NEPU. He also sought to use politics
to create an egalitarian Northern Nigerian society.
Another major idea of his in the
prelude to the first republic was the breakup of ethnically
based parties. The idea was well received by his emerging support base of petty
traders and craftsmen in towns along the rail track. The men and women were
mostly migratory individuals searching for trade opportunities and had little
ethnic similarities with their host communities. He also proposed a fiscal system that favors heavy taxation of the rich in the region
and was notably one of the few leading Nigerian politicians that supported equal rights for women.
Mallam Aminu Kano is highly
respected politician in Northern Nigeria. He symbolized democratization,
women's empowerment and freedom of speech. An airport, a college and also a
major street are also named after him in Kano. His house where he lived and
died and buried has been converted to Centre for Democratic Research and
Training under the Bayero University Kano.
Political quotes
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“
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1. That the shocking state of
social order as at present existing in Northern Nigeria is due to nothing but
the Family Compact rule of the so-called Native Administrations in their
present autocratic form.
'2. That owing to this
unscrupulous and vicious system of Administration by the Family Compact
rulers, there is today in our Society an antagonism of interests manifesting
itself as a class struggle, between the members of the vicious circle of the
Native Administration on the one hand and the ordinary "talakawa"
on the other.
'3. That this antagonism can be
abolished only by the emancipation of the "talakawa" from the
domination of these conduits, by the reform of the present autocratic
political Institutions into Democratic Institutions and placing their
democratic control in the hands of the "Talakawa" for whom alone
they exist.
'4. All parties are but the
expression of class interests, and as the interest of the talakawa
(commoners) is diametrically opposed to the interest of all sections of the
master class, a party seeking the emancipation of the talakawa must naturally
be hostile to the party of the oppressors."
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”
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See also
References
- "Reference Page on Federal Republic of Nigeria". NigeriaInfonet.com. KEK Technology Inc. Retrieved 2007-05-17.
- Rosalynde Ainslie, Catherine Hoskyns, Ronald Segal; Political Africa: A Who's Who of Personalities and Parties. Frederick A. Praeger, 1961. p 122.
- K. W. J. Post; The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959: Politics and Administration in a Developing Political System Oxford University Press, 1963. p 73
- Ainslie p 123
- Ergun Ozbudun, Myron Weiner; Competitive Elections in Developing Countries, Duke University Press, 1987. p 211-214
- M. G. Smith; Government in Kano, 1350-1950, Westview Press, 1997. p 492-493.
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