By BASHIR ADEFAKA
The DEFENDER Newspaper Nigeria’s independent investigation has revealed how Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar’s cash gift of N500,000 was received by the recipient, the Keke Marwa operator in Jos, Plateau State capital, Malam Akilu Gangare.
Gangare, it will be recalled, did the religiously inclined good deed of returning a lost but found cash of N500,000 to a passenger, who left his bag containing the money in his tricycle when he alighted being in a hurry to get to his destination.
Malam Akilu Gangare.
On Sunday, we fed our increasing readership locally and globally with news that when information of the noble behaviour by yet another Jos Muslim in trade got to the Leader of Muslims in Nigeria, who himself is a security man, he only needed to check to confirm it was a fact.
On confirming the authenticity of the information, the Sultan from his high throne in the Seat of Caliphate, refused to let the epitome of good moral character go unrewarded having done his checks through the Emir of Wase, Dr. Muhammad Sambo Haruna, and confirmed the truth.
Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar, who is President General, Jama’atu Nasir Islami (JNI), sent the cash reward, exactly in measure of what Gangare saw and refused to be tempted and influenced negatively in converting to self monetary property. He found N500,000, did a u-turn immediately in search of the passenger he just dropped off, located and handed his money back to its rightful owner. He got exactly the N500,000 with honour and praises, which he would have got through shameful means.
On Saturday, the Sultan’s N500,000 gift was presented to the recipient, Akilu Gangare, by the Emir of Wase, who is also the Chairman, JNI Plateau State Chapter, Dr Muhammad Sambo Haruna.
The DEFENDER, in its earlier report, had said that the Sultan’s gesture had been described as what leadership is expected to do to encourage restoration of lost moral values in the society as a man, who gets rewarded with goodness for doing good work, will not only want to do more but also will be copied by multitude of others in doing same.
The Sariki Musulumi of Nigeria, according to the fast growing online newspaper, called to mind a case made by late Sheikh Abdullahi Adam Al-Ilory in his lecture titled “Discipline”, saying the system should not only reward people with punishment but also that those who do good should be rewarded with goodness.
Sheikh Adam Al-Ilory had insisted that citizens, on their own part, should also know that while they demand for their human rights, they should also find out to know their duties towards the state in the spirit of peace, unity and development.
We were earlier informed by a source that, “Yesterday, Saturday 23.10.2021, His Eminence the Sultan rewarded Malam Akilu in Jos with the sum of NGN500,000. The exact amount he honestly returned to the owner,” The DEFENDER gathered in Sunday.
According to the source, “For His Eminence, this is not the first time of doing this kind of great gesture. He has done it severally before. It is his way of rewarding honesty and encouraging good citizenship according to Islamic teaching. Long live The Sultan! May Allah reward His Eminence with the exalted Jannah for leadership and all acts of kindness,” he said.
Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, a retired Army General and Co-President of the World Religions for Peace Council headquartered in the New York, had once retorted when he was asked about a similar gesture he did in recent time and he said:
“I am not aware of that. Whatever I do is not for show. But I only expect that when we give money to empower people, the money must be allowed to reach the person it is meant to uplift,” he once said.
