Sanusi had filed a lawsuit, challenging his banishment to Awe in Nasarawa State, where he was detained in a private home until March 13 when he obtained an interim order of the court for his release from house arrest.

IGP Adamu who challenged the lawsuit through his lead counsel Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), asked the court to strike out the lawsuit as it is not within its jurisdiction to hear the fundamental rights enforcement suit.

The police chief said “The alleged infringement of the fundamental right of the applicant in this suit (Sanusi) is only ancillary to the dethronement of the applicant as the Emir of Kano, which is a matter within the jurisdiction of the High Court of a state. It is crystal clear from all the processes filed by the applicant that the facts that gave rise to this case arose from Kano State, where the applicant was dethroned as the Emir and flown to Abuja en route Nasarawa State. It is our submission that coming into Abuja was only as a mere passage to their actual destination, which is Nasarawa State, and as such, Abuja cannot, by any stretch of reasoning, be said to be the place where the infringement occurred.”

However, Sanusi who countered the argument, stated that suit was not about his dethronement but his family’s forceful ejection from the palace and their banishment from Kano and subsequent confinement which spanned through three territories – Kano, Abuja and Nasarawa.

His lawyer said  “The nucleus or gravamen of the applicant’s complaint is centrally on the violations of the applicant’s fundamental rights and there is no or any other complaints therein. The claim of the applicant, as presently constituted, does not have any colouration of a chieftaincy matter as alleged by the 1st respondent. The applicant is not challenging his deposition in this case.”

The case was fixed for October 20 for hearing by Justice Chikere who presided over the case.

The former Emir of Kano who said this at a webinar themed: “The sustainability of society”, averred that corruption has impacted negatively on the society and that incompetent leadership has contributed to the degree of corrupt practices in the country.

He said “Morally and religiously speaking, corruption is a problem. But let us look at it from the angle of economics and we begin to understand that it is not just the corruption itself but the type of corruption. Part of the problem we have is incompetence and that is why I keep saying we must pay attention to merit. We have a system called Federal Character and I believe we should have Nigerians from all over the country in public office, but all those Nigerians must be people that are competent. There must be a merit test; a competence test. For me, I think the root of corruption is when we begin to de-emphasise merit, competence and performance and so long as we don’t bring the best in this country to do the job and hold them to account, we won’t go anywhere. The worst form of corruption we have in this country is nepotism; when people get into positions by virtue of personal loyalty, friendship and who they know, rather than what they can actually deliver by virtue of their competence for that office. We need people who can deliver for this country, I mean the majority.”