Anxiety mounts over alleged plot to dethrone Abubakar III

As anxiety grips Sokoto State residents over allegation that the government is plotting to dethrone the President of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, Vice President Kashim Shettima has directed the state government to provide adequate security for him.
The Vice President spoke at the North West Peace and Security Summit in Katsina. Shettima specifically told the Deputy Governor of Sokoto, Alhaji Idris Muhammad Gobir, that the Sultan must be guarded jealously.
“Our father who is a permanent picture in all developmental issues in this country, His Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto. I want to use him as my point of reference to recognise and appreciate all our royal fathers present here.”
“And to the Deputy Governor of Sokoto, I have a simple message for you. Yes, the Sultan is the Sultan of Sokoto, but he is much more than that; he represents an idea. He is an institution that all of us in this country need to jealously guard, protect, promote, preserve and project for the good of our nation,” VP Shettima said.
Ahead of the summit yesterday, the Executive Director of Muslim Rights Council (MURIC), Prof. Isiaq Akintola, had alleged that the Sokoto government was plotting to depose the Sultan. Akintola’s statement immediately fuelled anxiety in Sokoto and across the nation’s Muslim communities, bearing in mind that the State Governor Ahmed Aliyu had earlier deposed 15 traditional rulers for various offences.
Former Kaduna Central Senator Shehu Sani also reacted to the allegation in a post shared on his X page yesterday. He was quick to send a note of caution to the state governor. Shehu told the governor to jettison the idea.
While telling Aliyu that “Sultanate doesn’t belong to the people of Sokoto alone,” Sani admonished him to learn from the ongoing Kano Emirate crisis. He urged the governor not to allow “the viruses that infected the Kano emirate to infect the Sultanate.
“Even though it’s a subject of speculation or conjecture, I appeal to the Governor of Sokoto State not to allow the viruses that infected the Kano emirate to infect the Sultanate. That Sultanate doesn’t belong to the people of Sokoto alone. We are stakeholders,” he tweeted.
However, Abanikanda Olumoro, has accused former governor, Aliyu Wamakko of stoking the crisis.
Ina piece he titled: “Wamakko not Governor Ahmad Aliyu has declared the war on Sultan”, Olumoro claimed: “Wamakko should also be told that we, as Nigerian lovers and followers of this Sultan, will not hold the current Governor of Sokoto State responsible for show of ungratefulness towards the Sultan as an embodiment of great Nigerian institution with his pet project of peace, unity and development of Nigeria. It is him, former governor, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, that we will hold responsible because we know that he is only using Governor Aliyu to achieve his aim of fighting the unputdownable Sultan. If you go ahead with it, I see regret at the end of it all. Caution, the only way to stop the imminent war before it commences.
“We started hearing this misbehavior of Wamakko ahead of 2019 general elections when his supporters would go to the front of the Sultan Palace and say: ‘We will have a new government and we will have a new Sultan.’ As God would have it then, they failed in the governorship election and Wamakko, as it is now clear to us, and his cohorts at the time failed to convince Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s Presidency in their behind-the-scene campaigns of calumny to make it believe that Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, was pro-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) monarch working against the his administration.”
Notwithstanding his claim, Akintola has said in his statement: “Feelers in circulation indicate that the governor may descend on the Sultan of Sokoto any moment from now using any of the flimsy excuses used to dethrone the 15 traditional rulers whom he removed earlier.
“MURIC advises the governor to look before he leaps. The Sultan’s stool is not only traditional. It is also religious. In the same vein, his jurisdiction goes beyond Sokoto. It covers the whole of Nigeria. He is the spiritual head of all Nigerian Muslims.
“Therefore, any governor who tampers with the stool of the Sultan will have Nigerian Muslims to reckon with because the Sultan combines the office of the Sultan of Sokoto and that of the President General of the NSCIA.”
Akintola said Nigerian Muslims would reject any thought of deposing the Sultan. “Nigerian Muslims reject any thought of deposing the Sultan.”
According to him, the Sultan’s role is not only traditional but also religious, extending beyond Sokoto to cover all Nigerian Muslims as their spiritual head.