By Bawa Tijjani Maisango

Public Forum


 

It was Monday, and all the people had assembled in Abuja. They were former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the person who gave Nigeria a sick President to avenge the rejection of his infamous third term attempt. There was the Aare Ona-Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Otunba Gani Adams, leader of the dreaded O’dua People’s Congress (OPC). During Obasanjo’s administration, he was always in the news over the activities of OPC in Lagos in the 2000s.

The president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Samson Ayokunle, the cleric who recently threatened fire and brimstone over United States delisting Nigeria from “Countries of Particular Concern” with respect to violations of religious freedom, was ably represented. There was also the national leader of Pan-Niger Delta Forum, Chief Edwin Clark, the octogenarian who stopped seeing anything positive about anybody and Nigeria since the massive defeat of his political son, Goodluck Jonathan, in the 2015 general election. Chief Audu Ogbeh, the retired man who only regained his voice of political activism after he was dropped from President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet in 2019, was there. Another attendee at the event was the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III.

From their antecedents, all these people are unrepentant critics and political actors who want us to see them as elder statesmen. They came together under the auspices of Global Peace Foundation, in collaboration with Vision Africa, to lampoon and blackmail Buhari’s administration.

There was nothing surprising about Obasanjo, Clark, Ayokunle or Gani Adams coming together to pursue a self-aggrandising enterprise. What was surprising to many Nigerians, and northerners in particular, was the presence of Sultan Abubakar at the event at a time when his immediate constituency of Sokoto had some issues.

The Sultan attended this event barely days after bandits killed over 80 people in one night and burnt more than 23 travellers inside a bus in the most horrifying manner. He did not visit the lone survivor of the Sokoto bus attack, the 30-year-old Malama Shafa’atu who was admitted at the Usman Danfodio Teaching Hospital, Sokoto. Malama Shafa’atu was one of only two passengers who came out of the bus alive. The other survivor later died the same day the gruesome attack happened.

On Friday, the woman, speaking from her sick bed after sustaining burns from the attack, revealed how over 40 travellers were burnt alive by bandits loyal to Turji. Shafa’atu narrated how she saw her 10-month-old baby, four daughters and her mother burnt to death.

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Many Nigerians thought the gravity of the calamity and its barbaric nature were enough to propel the Sultan to visit Shafa’atu in hospital. That was not to be. Her circumstances did not cause a sympathy visit by Sultan Abubakar. And she died hours after telling the world how bandits opened fire on the moving bus, forcing it to summersault, then it was engulfed in flames, and how they watched the passengers screaming and burned to ashes.

Even before the Obasanjo-Gani Adams-led event, Sultan Abubakar had searched for any platform, no matter how insignificant, provided its stock in trade was attacking the Buhari administration and it would give him a microphone to talk with veiled expletives and anger against Buhari and his administration. Earlier in March, the Sultan was at the 2021 Obafemi Awolowo Lecture, where he joined other leading opposition voices, such as Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, former Commonwealth secretary-general, Emeka Anyaoku, public intellectual Odia Ofeimun and former Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II to blame all the problems of Nigeria since Independence on Buhari’s administration.

Even after that, on September 27, the Sultan led an army of traditional rulers from across the North to Kaduna to join northern governors in fighting the value added tax (VAT) war against southern governors. At the end of the Kaduna meeting, the traditional rulers and the governors unanimously agreed that the North would retain power in 2023 and VAT collection must remain an exclusive preserve of the Federal Government. That show of shame elicited anger from many Nigerians, particularly northerners. They were angry because the meeting took place at a time when over 40 local government areas in Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara states were without telecommunication networks, markets and gas stations, among others, as security forces battled bandits. Thousands of villagers were displaced and hundreds were in captivity at that time. There was no word on this.

A queer incident happened on November 29, 2019, at the National Mosque, Abuja, where, to the surprise of all, including Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, Sultan Abubakar publicly traded words with the First Lady, Hajiya Aisha Buhari, during the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) General Assembly and National Executive Council (NEC) meeting. Like many well-intentioned Nigerians did, the First Lady had innocently called for the regulation of social media platforms to checkmate some destructive tendencies. She explained that China, with about 1.3 billion people, had done so. She said many countries in Europe, Asia and America were taking the same measures to safeguard public security and forestall anarchy. The Sultan was only short of lampooning the First Lady for advancing that point of view.

That was not all. Speaking at the 2019 fourth-quarter meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council in Abuja, Sultan Abubakar warned the Federal Government against the continued detention of Mr. Omoyele Sowore, who was arrested for calling for a revolution, leading the #RevolutionNow campaign. Sowore has been against Buhari’s presidency after failing to secure meaningful votes during the 2019 presidential election he contested.

From January 23, 2021, supporters of Yoruba Nation activist, Sunday Adeyemo (popularly known as Sunday Igboho),  attacked the palace of Sarkin Fulani, Alhaji Salihu Kadiri, in Igangan, razing the palace and other houses, in addition to other atrocities committed across the South West. Despite all these, there was graveyard silence from the Sultan. Many northerners won’t forget easily how, in February 2018, the Sultan led traditional rulers and governors to boycott the Kaduna Centenary Celebration. The reason for that action might just be Sultan’s belief that Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i would use the opportunity to advance his presidential ambition. He had to fight that tooth and nail to “protect  his benefactor,”  Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who is a presidential aspirant.

With all these, it is becoming more apparent that Sultan might just be against the Buhari government. He should, however, know that traditional rulers are supposed to be apolitical. Enough of dragging the Sultanate into the murky waters of politics.

•Maisango wrote from Abuja