For the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammad Sanusi II, there has always been something strange about the daughter, Shaheeda who represented him at the BBOG movement’s third anniversary lecture for missing Chibok girls in Abuja last Friday.
By her own account at the Transcorp-Hilton Hotel venue of the event, Shaheeda said that she just became the first female in northern Nigeria to represent an Emir at a formal event.
While she appeared to have some inkling about the criticism that was bound to trail the development, and her not so conventional or inadequate use of the veil, her father’s video message that introduced her as a rather strange child took some members of the audience by surprise.
“Although I won’t be there in person, I decided to send not my son but my daughter, Shaheeda to represent me,” the emir said in his introduction of Shaheeda.
“Let me tell you something about the young lady who is going to read my speech. Shaheeda is a graduate of African Leadership Academy in South Africa and a graduate from New York University as a Biology major.
“But long before she went to African Leadership Academy, when she was in Form 3, I remember an incident that is probably relevant for today.
Her mother came to me and said: ‘You need to talk to your daughter’ and I asked her: ‘Why?’
“She said: ‘Your daughter slapped a boy in school’. It is a bit strange so, I called Shaheeda and said: ‘Shaheeda, I heard that you slapped a boy in school. Why did you do it?’
“Then she said: ‘Dad, that boy has no respect for women’.
“So, I asked her exactly what she meant by that. It turned out that one day, during prep in the afternoon, in full class, the boy had come to her, and put his finger to her forehead and pushed it backwards, and he was in the habit of doing it to all the girls in the class.
“She had said nothing apparently and waited until the next day. She walked into the prep class late, the whole class was full, and she walked up to him, slapped him, and said: ‘That was for yesterday’.
“So, long before we started talking about marriage and talking about whether when your husband slaps you, you should slap him back, Shaheeda had decided for herself that she would not take abuse, she would not take insult and she would not be disrespected by any man.
“As you will see when she presents this paper and maybe if she has the time to speak her own mind, those who are opposed to my views and those who think that I am a problem have a much bigger problem to deal with in the next generation of Sanusis.
“They are far more radical, they are more progressive, they are far more committed, they are far more fearless.
“So, maybe it is time for us to address these issues before those group of tigers come to the scene,” the Emir stated in the video message shortly before his daughter, Shaheeda read a prepared text.