More and more people across Africa are streaming toward the
continent's cities, hoping to invent new lives in the bustling urban centres.
Perhaps no one understands the fragile intersection between
traditional and modern life better than Moses ole Samante, who moved to Nairobi,
the Kenyan capital, in 2005.
Moses is an ambitious Maasai tribesman who left his village to make it
in the big city and now runs his own successful safari business, but works hard
to maintain his village ties - supporting his family and the Maasai community
in his village.
"It was my dream that I can be able to make it and do something
good because I see the community is looking out for me," he says.
"Many of the companies in Kenya are owned by French people,
German, people and Americans, but actually what they are doing I can also do.
It was my dream that me, as an African, I can be able to make it and open my
own company ....
"Actually I was robbed on the first day when I came to Nairobi. I
was a little bit afraid, but then I said [to myself] like a warrior surviving
inside the lion and inside the elephants, I must survive in the city for me to
be capable of achieving what I wanted in my life. But sometimes wearing the
suit I become so much tired .... There is two Moses' inside me: The Nairobi
Moses and the Maasai Moses."
The Emir of Kano
strolls regally along the red carpet with a silver-tipped staff and a jeweled turban
that looks like a disco ball, as commoners bow and scrape in his wake.
He mounts a white
steed behind the scarlet palace walls. Then he leads thousands of Muslim
warriors mounted on horses in a charge through this massive African city,
waving lances and firing loaded muskets in what is now an annual ceremony.
The event, held in
honor of the emir, attests to the power and image these Islamic rulers still
enjoy in northern Nigeria. The heads of the dozen or so emirates in the area
hold sway over more than 70 million subjects, and are sometimes criticized for
acting like kings in what is now a democracy. Yet they also play an important
role in warding off religious fundamentalism, and the strident, hard-line Islam
common to other countries outside West Africa does not have a foothold here.
Across Africa,
there are endless numbers of tribal chiefs, clan leaders and regional headmen
who enjoy popular support but little real power. Some nations, like Swaziland,
retain their monarchs. In others, kings are revered figureheads, like the
leader of the Ashanti people of Ghana.
In northern
Nigeria, the emirs have no control over mechanisms of the state such as the
police, taxation or criminal justice. But they receive five percent of all
funds given to local government.
The Emir of Kano
boasts the most followers, about 14 million, and is considered to be extremely
wealthy, although total annual government receipts aren't released. He has four
wives and dozens of concubines.
The wealth can
rankle. The governor recently gave local chieftains under the emir dozens of
new Toyota Land Cruisers, prompting a group of youths to stone his motorcade to
protest what they called misuse of funds.
The emirs are also
sometimes considered as throwbacks in a nation where officials are supposed to
be elected.
"The greatest
challenge we face as a democratic nation is strengthening our government
structures," says Attahiru Jega, the vice chancellor of Kano's Bayero
University. "I recognize (traditional rulers) as great symbols, but ...
they have been a hindrance in our country."
At the same time,
the emirs wield considerable power as the top Islamic figures in their regions.
The annual durbar
ceremony in Kano is a reenactment of an Islamic jihad that swept the region two
centuries ago, and the emirs are considered descendants of the jihadi leaders.
They choose the imams of the main mosques and so control what kinds of sermons
followers hear. They have publicly denounced Osama Bin Laden.
The emirs also
oversee the Shariah court system, which rules based on Islamic civil law. In
northern Nigeria, governors have imposed the Shariah system in a bid to harness
their political fortunes to religious sensibilities. When shariah was
introduced in Kano about eight years ago, many Christians left the city and
dozens of people were killed in riots soon after.
Emirs step in at
moments of crisis to mediate inter-religious violence or land disputes before
they spiral out of control. And politicians look to them for legitimacy, asking
the traditional leaders to weigh in on policy decisions. For example, an emir
can help push through a road construction project by convincing angry farmers
who don't respect their government to give up land for the highway.
In Kano, a city of
about 4 million people, the emir hears petitioners during public audiences. But
he rarely speaks directly to them or to the media, and passes down rulings
through court aides instead.
The old city walls
are little more than rubble, and the open sewers fester with uncollected human
waste. The emirs stopped providing services to the public when the country won
independence 48 years ago, and the politicians who came after haven't provided
any either. Kano's streets are strewn with trash, and schools and clinics are
run down.
"There must
be a change in the future. Military rule has failed. Civilian rule and
democracy is failing," says Abba Bashir Yola, a 43-year old personal
assistant to the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero. "We should go back to the
traditional chiefs, who have discipline, good sense."
Nigeria's emirates
date back to the early 1800s, when a jihadi leader called Usman Dan Fodio grew
disgusted with lax enforcement of Islamic principles across the north and set
out with his followers from the city of Sokoto to establish a new order.
After conquering
much of the region on horseback, Dan Fodio left behind the emirs. The emirs
ruled and also acted as the supreme religious authorities in the regions — a
comparatively rare relationship in Africa, where monotheistic religions were
usually imposed from outside.
In the mid-1800s
British colonialists conquered the southern, Christian areas, forever weakening
tribal structures there. But in the north, where Islam reigned, the
colonialists ruled by proxy through the emirs. British Queen Elizabeth II
visited the Emir of Kano in 1956 to watch the traditional display known as a
"durbar," where thousands of horsemen in spangled and colorful
outfits ride through the streets of Kano.
Then came independence
in 1960, and Nigeria became a secular nation of 250 ethnic groups divided
between Christianity and Islam.
The emirs still
represent for many people in northern Nigeria a link to a more-storied past,
when they were part of a great Islamic kingdom rather than just the northern
half of a failing modern state. Some wish the ceremonial horsemen would ride
again, for real.
"The emir is
honest and good. We like him better than these politicians," says Auwal
Dankaka, a 30-year old street trader. "The governor may be stronger, but I
would vote for the emir over him."
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