The Sokoto state government has refuted claims made by MURIC that it intends to depose the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III.
According to Commissioner for Information Sambo Bello Danchadi, the government has no plans to remove the Sultan from his position.
News About Nigeria reports that the government has dismissed MURIC’s allegations as entirely false and baseless.
Sambo explained that the law guiding the appointment and disposition of traditional rulers in the state had not been changed or even repelled.
The Executive Director of the Muslim Rights Council (MURIC), Prof. Isiaq Akintola, raised an alarm Monday that the Sokoto state government was plotting to depose His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, against the backdrop of the happenings in Kano.
MURIC, in a statement, cited the removal of 15 traditional rulers for various offences.
Prof. Akintola, in a statement, further warned that the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria would reject and resist any hostile actions against the Sultan, who happened to be the spiritual leader of all Muslims in Nigeria.
The Islamic organisation, however, expressed concern over the alleged sour relationship between the state government and the Sultan.
The organisation said the pedestal of the Sultan of Sokoto was not only traditional but also religious, noting that the Sultan doubles as the head of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.
The group warned the Sokoto governor not to “force Nigerian Muslims to take a drastically revolutionary measure.”
It said, “Feelers in circulation indicate that the governor may descend on the Sultan of Sokoto any moment from now using any of the flimsy excuses used to dethrone the 15 traditional rulers whom he removed earlier.
“MURIC advises the governor to look before he leaps. The Sultan’s stool is not only traditional, it is also religious. In the same vein, his jurisdiction goes beyond Sokoto. It covers the whole of Nigeria. He is the spiritual head of all Nigerian Muslims.
“Any governor who tampers with the stool of the Sultan will have Nigerian Muslims to reckon with because the Sultan combines the office of the Sultan of Sokoto and that of the President General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs,” says MURIC.
Vice President Kashim Shettima, while reacting to the alarm raised by MURIC on the alleged planned dethronement of the Sultan by Sokoto by the state government, said the Sultan is an institution that must be guarded and jealously protected by all Muslims.
