Islamic Vacation Course (IVC) is one of the most vital organs of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN). It was initiated at the inception of that Society in 1954 to furnish Muslim students with the required basic Islamic education that could serve as their foundation in life. IVC is so-named because of its design to take place during long school vacations. For more than 54 years after its establishment, IVC had been moved from State to State where public or private school premises were used for the educative programme. But with the increasing population of its members it became difficult to use one single school premise for the vital regular training given to members. Thus, as a token of progress, the thought of stabilizing the Association by establishing permanent sites got a consensus. And each of the two major zones of the Association (A and B zones) was given a go ahead to provide a permanent site for the programme while the Head Office is sited in Abuja.
It was for the purpose of laying the foundation stone of B Zone’s permanent site that many Muslim organizations and individual personalities assembled in Ibadan on a Sunday. And who could have been more fitting for laying such a foundation than His Eminence, the Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubar III. As usual, he was personally present to perform the historic duty.
Also present were the Otaru of Auchi, Oba Aliru Momoh, the Onitaji of Itaji Ekiti, Oba Adamo Babalola, the late Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland Alhaji Abdul Aziz Arisekola Alao, the former Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, late Dr. Abdul-Lateef Adegbite, late Justice Bola Babalakin (retired), the former and pieoneer Secretary General of Muslim Ummah of South West of Nigeria, Professor DOS Noibi and a host of other highly respected Muslim personalities too many to mention here, who came from all parts of the country. Most of these personalities were members of the MSSN at one time or another.
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Also present at the occasion were many Muslim Organizations across the country including MSSN itself, the National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations (NACOMYO) Jam’atu Nasrul Islam, Nasru Llah Al-Fatih (NASFAT), Fathu Quareeb, Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), The Companion, The Criterion and a host of other Organizations.
At the occasion, the Sultan was so impressed by a four year old boy’s recitation of the Qur’an that he instantly awarded him full scholarship from the primary school to the University. It was his second time of doing that in 2008 alone. When he came to Ibadan for the inauguration of MUSWEN earlier this year, he announced three personal and automatic scholarships for three female Muslim students who could gain admission into the University to read medicine. And at the foundation laying ceremony he made a personal donation of three million naira which he called first installment.
There is no part of this country that this Sultan has not personally visited formally as Amirul Mu’minin thereby confirming that Sultanate is rather for the entire country than just Sokoto as erroneously believed by many and echoed by the Nigerian Press.
Perhaps it was in consideration of this new reality that the conglomerate of the above named Muslim Organizations declared in Ibadan that the office of the Sultan for Nigeria as a whole and not for Sokoto alone. And the proposal was made by the Southern Muslims who might have realized an error in restricting the title to a single city (Sokoto) for many years.
SULTAN is an Islamic title which means AUTHORITY. Whoever is legally crowned in that venerable office is legitimately vested with the authority to give Fatwa or delegate such power to any other competent Muslim Cleric. The office should therefore be for the entire Muslim society in Nigeria and not just a city, state or tribe. Sultanate came to replace Caliphate at a time when Caliphate was becoming irrelevant because of the gross abuse to which it was subjected through power struggle. To try to restrict it to a locality here in Nigeria, therefore, is like limiting the scope of Islam by sheer whim and caprice. No sensible oceanographer will want to confine the movements and operations of a whale to a brook. This new reality is long overdue.
The emphasis on Sokoto whenever the title of SULTAN is addressed in Nigeria was a design by the colonialist not only to impress the restriction of Islam to a locality in Nigeria but also to stress their imaginary superiority of the British monarchy over Sultanate. Such a design which came to be inherited by Nigerian political elite is suggestive of the possibility of having a Sultan in any locality where Muslims are found. That was one of their many ways of degrading Islam. And this grossly contradicts the Islamic norm by which the Sultanate office was established.
There are four Sultanates in the world today. They are the Sultanate of Oman, the Sultanate of Bahrain, the Sultanate of Brunei and of course our own Sultanate of Nigeria. It will be noticed that each of the first three Sultanates was mentioned in relation to its country of domain and not of localities. Why should that of Nigeria be different? Afterall, the other three Sultanates put together are by far smaller in area size and in population than that of Nigeria. Why then should we as Muslims accept an imposition on us by those who didn’t know how Sultanate came about?
Since the title belongs to Islam and the Muslims alone, it should be the exclusive right of only the Muslims to redefine that title appropriately and call it its befitting name without consulting any non-Muslim. And that was what the Nigerian Muslims did in Ibadan that Sunday, during the foundation laying of the MSSN permanent site in Ibadan.
Afterall, this is not the first time that the Muslims in Southern Nigeria would initiate Islamic action that would become a national affair. Such initiatives have rather always come to strengthen the Unity of the Nigerian Muslim Ummah. Examples of these are many. Muslim Students Society of Nigeria is one. NACOMYO is another. FOMWAN is another. CRITERION is another. And yet, there are also NASFAT and FAT’HU QUARIB. All of these and many more are National Muslim Organizations initiated from the South-West but to which millions of Nigerian Muslims belong today by choice without any tribal or sectional bias.
Incidentally, all these organizations were present or ably represented at the foundation-laying ceremony of the Islamic Vacation Course (IVC) permanent site where the declaration of the SULTAN OF NIGERIA was made last Sunday and there was no single dissenting voice. If the proposal or that declaration had been made by any Northern Muslim Organization it would have been perceived as Northern gimmick to laud it over the South. But here is a declaration made in the South by the Southern Muslims on their own volition. What else can anybody say to controvert it?
Going by that declaration therefore, it becomes a reality that this only African Sultanate is of Nigeria and not of Sokoto as hitherto assumed. And Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III has confirmed this by his utterances and actions. He has shown Nigerians the difference between leadership and rulership. And by his example we have come to realize that what Nigeria has always lacked is not rulership but leadership. As Muslims, we prayed for good leadership and Allah in His mercy granted us one. It is now left to us to appreciate it by not abusing it. We pray the Almighty Allah to further guide and protect this Sultanate that the Nigerian Muslim Ummah may fall asunder.
