By Timothy Ojo
Hours after breathing the sweet air of freedom, following his release from house arrest at Awe, Nasarawa State, the deposed Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, arrived Lagos, Friday night, to re-unite with his family.
His plane departed the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, at about 10:47p.m.
Earlier in the day, Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, a childhood friend of the deposed monarch, had travelled to meet him in Nasarawa State, and the two travelled together to Abuja, from where the deposed Emir and his entourage flew to Lagos.
People trooped to the street in Nasarawa, hailing the two friends endlessly.
Governor el-Rufai said he stood by Sanusi because the two of them had been friends since they were teenagers. Rufai said the former Governor of the Central Bank had always been with him through thick and thin; and he too had been with the ex-Emir when things were good and when they were rough.
“We are inseparable,” Rufai told journalists.
While wishing the people of Kano well, el-Rufai described Sanusi as a great asset to Nigeria, Africa and the world. And he was happy that his friend would now be in Lagos, “his preferred destination (after the dethronement) because some of his family are in Lagos.”
During its midnight news cap, Channels Television showed the ex-Emir and his entourage arriving Lagos, stepping out of the aircraft.
Sanusi’s journey to freedom actually began Friday morning when a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, the federal capital, ordered his immediate release.
Sanusi was dethroned on Monday and banishd to Awe, a town in Nasarawa State.
But on Thursday, he headed to the Federal High Court in Abuja, through his lawyer,Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and sought an order of the court for his immediate release from detention.
The respondents in the case are: the Director-General of the Department of State Service, DSS, Yusuf Bichi; the Attorney-General of Kano State, Ibrahim Muktar; the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN.
After hearing from counsels of the affected parties, Justice Anwuli Chikere ruled on the ex parte application by Sanusi’s counsel, and ordered the immediate release of the dethroned Emir.
Justice Chikere then fixed further hearing of the substantive case for March 26, 2020.