Nigeria: Sokoto State Govt and the Sultan

26 June 2024
This Day (Lagos)

This is to express concern and equally condemn the move by the Sokoto State government to also depose the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa'd Abubakar. after dethroning 15 traditional rulers.

Sokoto State Governor, Ahmed Aliyu, should reject any thought of deposition of our Sultan, who is also the President General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA).

The Sultan's stool is not only a religious one, but steeped in tradition and being the spiritual head of all Nigerian Muslims, his jurisdiction goes beyond Sokoto because it covers the whole of Nigeria and even beyond.

The Vice President Kashim Shettima has thankfully and timely said that the throne of the Sultan is an institution that must be jealously guarded and protected.

Therefore, any governor who tampers with the stool of the Sultan will reckon with the wrath of Nigerians because the position is a sacred one, very much unlike the political one that the governor occupies - that of four or eight years only and at the mercy of the electorate.

For the avoidance of doubt, this wrong move has immediately distanced the governor from the people because Sultan Muhammad Sa'd Abubakar's leadership has warmed him into the hearts of Nigerians.

This is therefore a call for the National Assembly members, including the Presidency, to, as a matter of urgency, move to amend the Nigerian Constitution in such a way that our traditional institutions be only answerable to the Presidency, and not the state governors.

This will make it impossible for any governor to harass or intimidate our revered and age-old traditional institutions, because the power and influence of governors over traditional rulers have become absolute and totalitarian in recent times.

It is arbitrary, irrational and condescending for state governors, using any flimsy excuses, to possess the power to dethrone the leader of all Muslims in Nigeria. So even when the state government says that there is no plot to dethrone the Sultan, the damage has been done already. Enough is enough.

Alh. Abubakar Mohammed, Kubwa, Abuja

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