*Plus: The Glamour of Durbar on Eid Day
*How Caliphate, Govt collaborate to lift Sokoto’s economy – Findings
*Sokoto monarch speaks on Abuja Sultanate Guest House
Booking a flight for a Sokoto trip with any of the airlines mainly Aero Contractors and Arik requires that one engages in fervent prayers and work. Prayers that Allah would make it easy to get and work that one should act fast and book as early as three days ahead. Else, the seats aren’t any longer available. This is a fact.
But why? It is simple. Sokoto is fast becoming a hub for every event and economic activity to which peace, security and stability are required factors. Institutions therefore visit Sokoto, regardless of distance, to hold their seminars, Annual General Meetings (AGMs), lectures, conferences same way economic activities now spring up in the state. Credit to the joint effort of Sultan of Sokoto and Sariki Musulumi of Nigeria, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III and the Government of Sokoto State then under the person of Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko and now, more strongly, Maigrima Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as governor. It is this development that led to the air traffic that make flights to Sokoto from Lagos and Abuja a hot cake.
Sokoto is simply unarguably the most peaceful state in Nigeria and, by extension, in the West African countries to which the reign of Sultanate of Nigeria extends. This is one major factor that works for the ancient Northern society formed into a proper emirate in 1800 by Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio, among whose descendants is the United States of America-based Nigerian military Diplomat, Brigadier General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, who was forced by natural order of occurrence, with the death by ADC plane crash in October 2006 of his senior brother and 19th Sultan Muhammadu Maccido, to become the 20th Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate during the reign of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Governor Attahiru Bafarawa. Recall that today, Obasanjo, like Bafarawa and Tambuwal, is a title holder in Sokoto who also rides on horse in due time to pay homage to the sitting Sultan.
This reality explains why this reporter lost the chance of picking a seat on any of the flights flying the Sokoto route despite that he had gone to the Murtala Muhammed Airport Ikeja (MMA2) booking counters of the airlines three days ahead of trip but was told that all seats were fully booked. That forced the reporter to fly a non-Sokoto flight to Kaduna and from there pick a car drop that took him to Sokoto on a 5-hour trip by road. Good news is that, the whole experience did not take more than six hours from Lagos to Sokoto, which is still better than going by road through the night till following day taking up to between 18 and 20 hours.
The Eid and Durbar with Sultan in domain
In the end, Sokoto got set for Sallah and celebrating Sallah, particularly, the just concluded Eid-ul-Adha, quite ecstatic, came this year with all the glamour that any celebration involving personalities like the Sultan, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III and the Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, could come by: Durbar was the interesting plus! Of course Eid was the natural order. And it became more interesting with the sight of a troupe sent by His Royal Majesty, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin, who performed cheerfully and passionately to the entertainment of the beloved friend of Benin Kingdom, Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III. The Muttawalen and Governor of Sokoto State Maigrima Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and other dignitaries on the high seat-lines of the Palace Arcade watched the Benin troupe on one side just as they concurrently keep eyes on the proceedings of the very explosive Durbar put up by participants including camel and horse riders as well as princes and other districts’ heads dancing as they matched pass the front of the Sariki Musulumi, the governor and other dignitaries.
Of interest also was the fact that many people including some white men chose to be Sallah guests of the Sultan in ensuring that they feel the touch of the festive moment with the man who is revered for his capacity as most influential monarch in his country Nigeria, fourth on the African continent and 17th most influential Muslim in the world.
Order of events on Sallah Day
His Eminence Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III’s neatness, discipline and penchant for organisation appeared quite vividly in how he prepared for, proceeded to and returned from Eid on that given experience celebrating Sallah with him in his domain. These also showed in how his itinerary for the rest of the Sallah day was executed by his security, protocol and Palace staff.
Beginning from 7.00am all the paraphernalia of his convoy had started to gather with the car that would convey him to Eid praying ground strategically positioned, security apparatus stationed and already taking charge of surrounding to be passed by the trado-religious leader, as council chiefs and others to be on his convoy putting heads together. At precisely 8.00am the much revered leader emerged from his Palace inner chamber through the main reception and once a kaakaki blasted, every person to be on the convoy took position and, the lead escort already moved to the roundabout front of the Palace to block any obstructing traffic. Sariki Sa’ad Abubakar is a “prophet” that is honoured not only in foreign land but more largely in his own country, Sokoto Caliphate especially inclusive.
As the royal Mercedes Benz with plate number ‘SULTAN’, hung a flag with an inscription ‘SULTAN’, snail drove towards the gate, a car suspected to be of Secretary to the Sultanate Council, Alhaji Faruq Ladan, followed the lead escort and then Sultan’s car followed. Already on standby outside the Palace gate were eight red uniform horse riders two of who, immediately after sighting the Sultan’s car emerge through the gate, moved straight to block to lead his car in the front, while the rest six took their respective positions right, left and back of the Leader’s car thereby shielding the Sultan completely from any external interference. That was a discipline his leadership put in place, executed by his own royal guards arrangement. A sports utility vehicle (SUV) conveying top echelons of the Sultan Council drove directly behind the Sultan’s car, followed by an executive bus conveying the princes and then Sultan Press Crew bus and then quite a number of vehicles that made the royal convoy a very long one.
Sokoto people are very interesting people. While some of them were already seated at Eid, there were quite a large number of some who had to line along the Sultan Abubakar Road side of the way to the Eid said to be the biggest in Sokoto State waving to their leader as he snail-drove past and, due to the hectic moment by human traffic of subjects and Muslim faithful who had to catch a glimpse of the man they described as “very amiable and supportive leader”, his security vehicles blasted their siren to get the crowds pave the way for him to get to Eid on time as time was soon going to be up. Already on ground at Eid were Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State, his deputy and other dignitaries and the moment the Sultan arrived, the Chief Imam rose and started the Eid prayer by raising up his hands with scream, “Allahu Akbar!” repeatedly for first seven times and then followed by another round of five times.
At the end of the prayer, the Chief Imam read his sermon, in Hausa, and the bottomline of the sermon was the need for Nigerians particularly the Muslims in the country to live together in peace, harmony and unity, pointing out clearly that hate speeches are no friends to any country desirous of meaningful development. It is however surprising that the same message that was delivered in Sokoto was also delivered by Imams all over the North and other parts of Nigeria. This is power of an effective leadership. And from then, the wind of change in town is geared towards peace, harmony and unity. And Nigerians, with particularly this year’s Eid-ul-Adha, now begin to be learning and implementing seriously the need for them to join hands together in fight against hate speeches to live together in peace and harmony.
Other parts of the order of event was homage by the Governor of Sokoto State to the Sultan after the Durbar procession but the Sultan also reciprocated the governor’s homage with a courtesy visit on him at his private house on the day next to Friday Eid. The whole experience during the visit by this reporter shows clearly how the government and traditional institutions in Sokoto State have succeeded in putting their acts together for the peace and economic successes that the state has recorded in its own right and continue to build upon.
Sultan speaks on Abuja Sultanate Guest House
Be it for reason of being a retired General or just because of the royalty, Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III doesn’t talk anyhow. Although when he eventually chooses to talk, no one will be left in doubt of the need to want him to talk more and more. Alhaji “Saadu” as fondly called by his military colleagues in his days in the Army is such a humorous, enigmatic, pragmatic personality. It was in the same spirit that this reporter had the opportunity of extracting from him what exactly his side is of the story about the recent reported issue of Abuja Guest House linked with him.
“I think there is somebody somewhere who just wanted to spite me and the governor of Sokoto State otherwise, I see no reason for the report that I read in Sahara Reporters saying Sokoto State government bought a house in Abuja for Sultan who already owns his own house in Abuja. It is so very highly despicable. I wonder what kind of journalism some of the journalists practice these days. Journalists just jump at issue that they do not know how it begins, where it stops and where it will end, and they just write reports and their publishers will publish same. That is also part of the problem with social media.
“What actually happened was that, the Sokoto State Government decided to get a house in Abuja for the Sultanate Council not for Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III but for the Sultanate Council to be used by anybody who becomes the Sultan of Sokoto. That is the truth of the story. And they sat down at their state Executive Council meeting, discussed and got it approved according to the law. It is legally done by them therefore. All the findings that they did about the Abuja house they wanted to buy was done by the government. When they consulted me and said they would furnish the house with everything going to over a billion naira, I told them no, why should they buy a house of over a billion? I said when it is handed over to the Sultanate Council, I will move all the furniture that I use in the house that I live in currently, which is on rent, into the official residence.
“Because of my own input which assured them that there was no need for government to furnish the house, the cost reduced from over N1 billion to about N650 million. That should even be appreciated by anybody who thinks he has any sincerity in his spirit to the society. But because payment was made from the government account to somebody’s account, who is one of the son of the soil doing his own business as a private person and has his right to do business, and he has been doing contracts for government and is not a government official, somebody in the EFCC flashed it and he was right to have done that. But when they saw the whole thing, they discovered themselves that there was nothing that was wrong with what transpired. But, still, somebody in the EFCC had to give that as a story to Sahara Reporters and see what Sahara Reporters wrote about me, saying I have a house in Abuja and still collected money from government to buy a house in the same Abuja. So funny.
“But I am always happy whenever I remember that people who do this against me are only helping me as Allah will make sure that my sins will be removed and placed upon them. What Allah does to people who commit this kind of hypocrisy against another is that, He will take their good deeds away and replace them with the sins of the person they have wronged. That is my consolation. And that is why I refused to speak on it and I will never speak on it because it does not make sense to me. The truth is open and nobody is in doubt of the clarity. No financial wrong was committed and the Sokoto State Government had come out with the facts and that is final. Do you know that even up till now, the Sokoto State Government has not handed over to the Sultanate Council the Abuja house, which will be furnished by my own personal money? They are the ones doing all the findings and the buying by themselves. But they will definitely hand it over and when it is handed over, we will still have to work on it on our own to ensure that it meets the standard of the Sultanate so that we can hold our meetings and receive our visitors there without having to go out again and rent halls to do any of our official events in Abuja,” Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III said.
On a final note, some of the personalities in Sokoto who spoke to this reporter on particularly the Sahara Reporters’ report of the Sultanate Abuja house believed that some people must be envying the soaring popularity of the Sultan, which they said is natural.
One of them, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “I cannot say precisely who is sponsor of that report or who in the EFCC is being connived with to do that kind of attempted damage to our incorruptible Leader, but I do know that his soaring popularity, which his natural, is the headache that bothers them. And there is nothing they can do about it because in the North here, we have a standard and our governments know the standard and they respect and keep to the standard hence the need for a befitting Abuja house as thought and decided upon by the Sokoto State Government. Let me just warn whoever thinks he can dent the image of our traditional and religious Leader, the Sultan, to desist because not only he won’t succeed but he will return a disgraced person,” he said.
