Mallam Aminu Kano retains the profile of the model of the radical tradition in the North, best signified by the PRP of the 2nd Republic. Aminu Kano’s ascetism is not the fake type manifested recently by those who tried to be like him aa he perfectly understood it from a very functional rather than a hypocritical and shallow sense.
For that reason, Aminu Kano remains the authentic measuring rod for a vast number of younger Nigerians on issues as diverse as the politics of tax reform., 42 long years after his death. The cover graphic for this story illustrates the contention as it unfolds at the research centre named after him at Bayero University, Kano.
The graphic has all the details in terms of when, where, who and which! The message seems to be clear: Another Nigeria might, indeed, be possible!
Beyond the factual details is what experts in image reading will make of the late Mallam Aminu Kano’s innovation in dressing. That alone can take an entire seminar in cultural criticism. As Prof Adele Junaid suggested recently, social scientists and linguists in particular, would have to return to the leaders of the First Republic to unpack them more critically beyond what structuralists handed to us about them.
