In a few days time, His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) will be seven years on the throne. He assumed the exalted royal office as the 20th Sultan on November 6, 2006. And his impact both as a royal father and the Commander of Nigerian Muslim Ummah has been unprecedentedly historic. When he was five years on the throne, yours sincerely wrote an article in this column which remains as current today as it was then. Thus, the article is repeated here for the records. Please, read on:
“In every crowd of horizontal men there is always one vertical man who deserves honour not much because of his vertical position but because of the significant difference which that position makes to the crowd”
History and man are like Siamese twins or a pair of scissors. The one cannot do without the other. History makes man just as man makes history. And the reciprocal baton continues to change hands between them as long as they remain in existence.
Seven years ago, in Nigeria, an innocent human crescent lay hidden in the firmament of the orbit waiting to be sighted before prompting Nigerian Muslim Ummah into a united folk. That crescent is the towering personality generally known today as the SULTAN. The gentleman’s name did not ring any bell in Nigeria before he was named and crowned ‘THE SULTAN OF SOKOTO’ in November 2006.
Thus, the emergence of Brigadier General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar (rtd.) as the successor to the exalted throne of the great Sokoto Empire without any controversy came as a surprise to many Nigerians. At 50 years of age then, many people believed that he was one of the youngest men to become the Sultan in many years. But he disagreed with such suggestion and recalled that his own father, Sultan Abubakar Sadiq III who died in 1988 ascended the throne at the age of 37.
With a sound military background and a diplomatic and modern travelling exposure, this Sultan has been perceived since coming into office as a millennial royal Captain divinely designated to pilot the affairs of Islam and the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria with great success.
Philosophers who assert that every new century has a way of producing a great leader may be right after all. The example of His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar is a manifest attestation to that assertion. Ever since he assumed the exalted royal office about seven years ago, this great man has convincingly exemplified all the qualities of genuine leadership. Every statement he has made socially, religiously or politically and every action he has taken officially or personally has proved to be a school from which all well-meaning people have learnt one lesson or another.
Five years after his assumption of office, the symbiotic relationship of history and man was reconfirmed in Zaria, on Wednesday, (November 23, 2011), where a galaxy of well-meaning men and women from all walks of life assembled to say “we are here to bear witness”. That was the day His Eminence was installed as the CHANCELLOR OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA. The occasion was just one of many laurels accruing to him since he assumed office.
An American President, Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), once described a leader as “a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it”. By his activities and functions so far, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar has proved Truman right by demonstrating to Nigerian Muslim Ummah that the time has come for the reformation not only of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) but also the Sultanate.
When he assumed office seven years ago, he hinted that the Sultanate would be put on the internet to enable all educated Muslims have access to their leader. And in this age of computer, can anyone lay claim to any serious knowledge without adequate access to the internet? That is why he decided to start the reformation of the Sultanate through the instrumentality of the internet. And as an exemplary leader, he demonstrates his leadership prowess by possessing mastering fingers on the computer.
In Islam, education is the first law. It is only through it that man can understand life in all its ramifications. That was why Allah’s very first revelation to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) ordained education thus: “Read in the name of Allah who created; He created man from clots of congealed blood; Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, Who taught man by the pen; He taught man what he did not know…”Q. 96:1-4. To further emphasize the compelling need for education in Islam, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was reported to have said in one Hadith that “knowledge is a lost treasure. Muslims should look for it and pick it wherever they could find it”.
Without education there can be no information. And without information there can be no progress. That is why the Sultan started his reformation of the Sultanate from the premise of education. It is only with education that most problems in this world can be solved without much ado. Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar also believes that education without social harmony is like a virtue without value and that there can be no harmony in a society where people are overwhelmed by ignorance and penury as is the case in Nigeria. Thus, he has consistently focused on both.
At his installation as the Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University two years ago, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, told the crowd that the current socio-economic indices in Nigeria were a clear indication that the country had begun to drift. He lamented that despite the nation’s unprecedented resources, development had failed to match the national wealth.
In his words: “Corruption has emasculated our progress even as poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brinks, fuelling and confounding social conflicts and inter-communal crisis has extracted heavy toll in both human lives and property”. He went further to say that: “Persistent insecurity has generated panic and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructures are far from meeting the needs of the nation; the country appears to be adrift and at the core of all these is moral decay engendered by ignorance and greed.”
He also noted that the reform of the tertiary education sector could not be effective without putting in place, the progressive developments required in the basic and senior secondary education sectors insisting that “our state governments, especially those of the North, must begin to realize the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges.” He lauded the founding fathers of the ABU, especially, the late Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and urged the authorities of the school to continue to abide by the cardinal principles on which the institution was founded.
That is the renascent Sultan for you, a man who is at the topmost echelon of the tree of comfort but feels so much concerned about the plight of the peasants who are deliberately consigned to the weeding of the shrubs without hope through official policies. He has never relented in his advocacy for good governance and denunciation of corruption and religious intolerance.
When he was invited in January 2010 as a Special Guest of Honour to a religious seminar organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) with the theme: ‘Knowing Your Muslim Neighbour’, Sultan Abubakar delivered an historic speech that reverberated meaningfully across the entire world. And in May, same year, he also invited the leadership of CAN to a special conference of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) held in Kaduna. The theme of that conference was: ‘Islam in the Eyes of the Christians’. He is the first Nigerian first class Monarch ever to engage in such an interfaith affair at the national level and his speech on that occasion was also electrifying. Please read an excerpt from that speech as presented below:
“….we initiated, as we had done for the JNI, a thorough review of the activities of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs [NSCIA] and an extensive reform of its structures. It is our firm belief that these reforms are not only desirable but necessary, to reposition the Council to play its strategic role as the apex Islamic body in the country and to respond, effectively and meaningfully, to the challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. We have had extensive consultations over the last one year and have received very useful inputs on the reform agenda from all the constituent bodies of the Council. Our strategic objectives in this exercise had been and shall remain: firstly, the promotion of Muslim Unity and Solidarity, to accord the Ummah the ability to speak with one voice and to act and work together for the advancement of Islam.
Secondly, the development of Education and Economic Enterprise, to enable the Muslim Ummah play an active role in the socio-economic life of Nigeria is a sine qua non.
Thirdly, the promotion of peace and religious harmony both within the Muslim Communities and between the adherents of Islam and those of Christianity is a joint effort that cannot be handled with levity.
Fourthly, the establishment of effective linkage with Government, at local, state and federal levels, to safeguard the interest of the Ummah and to build consensus on those vital issues that bind us together as a nation must be pursued and sustained.
It is therefore our hope that as we bring this reform process to its logical conclusion, we will receive the support and patronage of the entire Muslim Ummah as well as the co-operation of all stakeholders including State Governments and indeed the Government of the Federation”.
“….The task of overcoming Nigeria’s problems calls for sacrifice, dialogue and understanding; and all national stakeholders must overcome the myopia of greed and self-centredness to move this great nation forward and safeguard its strategic interests….we must begin to look into the future with hope and confidence and to ensure, first and foremost, that we shore up the foundations of our political system. The National Assembly, and indeed all tiers of Government, should not relent in their current efforts at Electoral Reform and in ensuring that Nigerians have a genuine electoral process that guarantees free and fair elections. Unless and until we do that, our nation will continue to be haunted by the unholy alliance between fraudulent elections and illegitimate electoral outcomes, the consequences of which we all know too well. We must break away from this vicious circle and confer on Nigerians the power and indeed the ability to decide, freely and willingly, who leads them at all levels of governance”.
“….There is also the urgent need for us to re-evaluate our conception of leadership as a nation…. needless to add, that there is no way we can make genuine progress as a nation when a significant number of our populace wallows in abject poverty unable to secure the requisite means for their sustenance and to cater for the health and educational needs of their families. Democracy must build a humane society capable of looking after the legitimate needs of its citizenry. For it to be truly successful, it must be able to bring real progress to all sectors of our diverse society.
“Finally we must all work hard to limit the influence of wealth in our society and to support those values that promote social responsibility, excellence and hard work”.
That is Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar a leader who knows the problems of his followers and associates with them in solving those problems. Through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he has become the first Sultan to create a strong feeling of a united Ummah under a competent and kind leadership. And by speaking out incessantly against policies which seem to deliberately impoverish ordinary Nigerians across board, this Sultan has brought a rare hope to Nigeria and the Muslims are the luckiest for it. Such a leadership deserves allegiance, loyalty and regular prayer from the Ummah. We pray for the elongation of his life with very sound health and regular Allah’s guidance.
