Long-legged, black Haussa farmers in white robes and turbans loped into mud-walled Kano (pop. 120,000), the largest city in Northern Nigeria. Near the green-domed mosque, the Haussa mingled with their Moslem coreligionists, the fierce Fulani, and waited in the midday sun for the decision that would come from the palace. Abdullah Bayero, the fat and scented Emir of Kano, was wrestling with a problem. Both the royal flatterer and the court jester cowered in the background as he pounded across the Oriental rugs in the baked mud stronghold. At last the emir...
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