.jpg)
His Royal Highness, The Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, has told a delegation of religious leaders that he used his personal income to rebuild a church that was destroyed during a religious unrest at Rogo local government area in Kano.
The Emir said: “I renovated the said church to help avoid a situation where a Christian believer might feel offended and his religion disrespected”.
Emir Sanusi II, stated this during a oneday Inter-Religious and Community Conference organised by Kano State government with the theme: “Towards Strengthening Interfaith and Community Relations for Harmony, Peace and Sustainable Development, held at Coronation Hall, Government House, Kano, Kano State, yesterday.
The Emir admonished followers of the two major religions to respect each other’s religion to avoid future religious disharmony in the state and the country at large.
Emir Sanusi was selected to succeed his great uncle Ado Bayero as the Emir of Kano on the 8th of June, 2014. There was great controversy over the appointment. Some believed that it was politically motivated as a move to avoid charges of fraud, while he served as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, brought on by the government.
Many also expected Bayero’s son to succeed him as Emir and supporters of Bayero’s son angrily protested Sanusi’s appointment. He was formally crowned as Emir Muhammadu Sunusi II on the 9th of June, 2014 making him the 14th Emir of Kano and the leader of the Tijaniyya Sufi order, historically the second most important Muslim position in Nigeria after the Sultan of Sokoto who is the leader of the more populous Qadiriyya sufi order.
After urging his followers to fight back against the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, the Kano Mosque, the seat of his emirate, was bombed in November 2014 killing 150. In December 2014, the leader of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, accused him of deviating from Islam and threatened to kill him.
Sanusi replied that he is “safe with Allah” and likened Shekau’s comments describing Sufis as unbelievers to those of the heretical Islamic preacher Maitatsine.
