It was five years on Tuesday since I wrote a tribute
to the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad
Abubakar III, who was 65 at the time.
Our paths first crossed after he was named Sultan
following the tragic death of his brother,
Muhammadu Maccido, in the 2006 ADC air crash in
which 93 persons were killed.
Apart from his brother, Brigadier Abubakar (as he
then was) also lost his nephew, Senator Badamasi
Maccido, in that crash. It seemed that tragedy had
not only struck without notice, but it had also come
with its own chair and shelter.
On Monday, August 24, Sultan Abubakar III turned
70. He’ll mark his 20 th year on the throne on
November 2. It’s remarkable what the last five years
of his reign have revealed, for himself, the Sultanate,
and the country.
Two days after his 65 th birthday in 2021, for
example, the Sultan publicly said that things were
not getting better and that religious leaders had a
duty to tell the government so.
Shooting straight
He didn’t stop there. He said anyone who incited
violence, whether religious leaders, traditional rulers
or politicians, should face the law. And he said this
at a time when Plateau State was in the middle of a
dangerous cycle of ethnic violence, with serious
threats of reprisal.
He’s not one to mince his words. When mad men
under the franchise of Boko Haram or their affiliates
maim, murder, rape and destroy in the name of
Allah, claiming that if they die, a bevy of brides
awaits them in Paradise, some religious leaders may
choose silence. Not Sultan Abubakar III. He tells
such mad men in plain language, which he repeated
to my hearing some time ago, that “They’ll go
straight to hell!”
No one can kill in Allah’s name and expect shelter in
Paradise. The Arabic version of Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:
78-79, “Lā yatanāhawna ‘an munkarin fa‘alūhu,”
expressly calls out those who do not forbid, restrain
or admonish one another concerning the wrongdoing
they committed.
Inter-faith champion
One year after his 65th birthday, his credentials as an
interfaith leader were tested when Deborah Samuel,
a student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education,
Sokoto, was murdered over allegations of
blasphemy. The Sultanate Council condemned the
killing and demanded that the suspects face the law.
That was extraordinary, even if the civil authorities
under Governor Waziri Tambuwal ignored the
advice, and a former Vice President, Atiku
Abubakar, after condemning the act in a tweet,
quickly deleted it.
Abubakar III has done more for inter-faith unity and
understanding than any Muslim spiritual leader I’ve
known for a long, long time. In his capacity as co-
chairman of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, he
has worked tirelessly, drawing on his extensive
network with other faith councils worldwide, to
repair broken bonds and roll back religious
intolerance and extremism.
Social crusader
Sultan Abubakar III is, if you like, a moderate social
crusader, which is somewhat ironic, given that he is
from Sokoto, often regarded as the bastion of
conservatism. He has spoken out for education for
the child – boy or girl – reminding fools and their
enablers who despise education in the name of Islam
that the Caliphate was founded on education and
enlightenment.
And he’s right. Much of the documented history of
the Caliphate owes a lot to Nana Asmau, Sultan
Mohammed Bello’s younger half-sister, who spoke
four languages, according to the book by Fola
Fagbule and Feyi Fawehinmi, entitled Formations:
The Making of Nigeria from Jihad to Amalgamation.
Sultan Abubakar has spoken about the link between
rising insecurity, poverty, hunger, and social
exclusion, saying on one occasion that “hunger
knows no religion,” challenging the government to
tackle rising inflation and the high cost of living and
to stop making excuses.
When the Buhari government was sleepwalking on
court orders, including an order to release publisher
and activist Omoyele Sowore from detention, the
Sultan publicly said that disobedience to court orders
was “a recipe for chaos and disaster.” And he said so
at the meeting of the inter-religious council in
Abuja, Buhari’s playground at the time.
Shuttle diplomacy
The 2023 coup in Niger was a tricky moment for
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government, which
had only just been sworn in. When the hardline
posture of Nigeria and ECOWAS failed, the
Nigerian government sent a delegation led by
General Abdulsalami Abubakar and also comprising
the Sultan to explore channels where presidents and
diplomats had hit a brick wall.
It was a reminder that soft power can sometimes find
a way where force has exhausted itself. Although
Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso went ahead to form
the so-called Alliance of Sahel States (AES), the
mediation by the General Abubakar-led committee
averted the potential escalation of the crisis in the
subregion.
Many rivers to cross
Yet one of the Sultan's regrets as he turns 70 may
well be the dangerous rise of insurgency in Nigeria’s
Northwest. Borno (in the Northeast) remains the
epicenter, but the deadly activities of Lakurawa
indicate that Kebbi and Sokoto are emerging as
jihadist fronts in the Northwest. What the Sultan was
looking at from afar and warning against when he
was 65 has arrived at the doorstep of the Caliphate,
as a transnational Sahelian threat.
Translation: his job as a moral compass and
stabilizing voice is not done.
The world is not only listening, but also paying
attention. The Sultan and his brother in the business
of inter-faith engineering, Cardinal John Onaiyekan,
were jointly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The nomination was as good as winning, because it
sent a clear message that the extraordinary work that
both men are doing has not gone unnoticed – or
unrewarded. Both had jointly shared the prize for the
LEADERSHIP Persons of the Year 2012, proof that
these prophets are worthy, at home and abroad.
Moment of trial
Yet, there have been moments of trial in the last few
years. Two years ago, the future of the Sultanate
seemed to be tottering. Governor Ahmed Aliyu
proposed changes to the Sokoto Local Government
and Chieftancy Law that could have curtailed the
Sultanate Council's authority to appoint district and
village heads. Under the proposed changes, now
suspended, the council could only recommend
candidates, not appoint them.
Whatever the letter of the law intended, coming five
years after the Kano State government weakened the
powers of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi, it was an
affront to another important traditional institution in
the North.
The Sokoto State government wanted to bring the
Sultanate to its knees, exposing the fundamental
contradiction of modern Nigerian traditional
institutions: a man could be the spiritual leader of
tens of millions, internationally recognized and
sought after by presidents, yet his stool is subject to
state laws at the governor's pleasure.
Soldier and gentleman
As the Sultan turns 70, I have struggled to figure out
what might be behind his enigmatic path. He was a
member of the 18th Regular Combatant Course of
the Nigerian Defense Academy (the class of the
former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Azubuike
Ihejirika), and the first soldier to ascend the
Sultanate.
His extensive tour of duty in combatant and non-
combatant positions, especially his deployment as
defence adviser to Pakistan, with concurrent
accreditation to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi
Arabia, and the Gulf States, might also have shaped
his worldview.
To adapt Kipling’s words, at 70 and nearly 20 years
on the throne, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abukakar
III has seen triumphs and setbacks and treated both
impostors the same.
Long, and well, may you live and reign!
Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP
and author of the book, Writing for Media and
Monetizing it.
