Sultan of Sokoto, Mr Muhammad Abubakar Sa’ad III, has attributed incessant killings, particularly in the Northeast, to government’s failure at discharging its duties.
The monarch, who spoke yesterday in Kaduna State, at a meeting of Northern Traditional Rulers’ Council, said issues affecting the people, good governance and justice to all would be discussed.
He said: “I am the leader of Fulani in this country, and in the West African sub-region. I live with so many people and I know their problems, and I will never call on any Fulani to pick up arms to kill anybody.
“I have said it several times, those killing are criminals, and whoever you are, whether Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba or Fulani, you have no right to take up arms and kill anybody.
“If you see such things happening, then there must be a failure of government, but if the government wakes up to its responsibility, some of these things will not happen.
“As usual, we will discuss issues affecting the country, and at the end of the meeting, a communiqué will be issued and sent to our political leaders to see if they will implement any of our recommendations.
“We don’t have the power to force anybody to implement anything. As royal fathers and religious leaders, we can only recommend certain things and advise because leadership is not a monopoly of one individual, group or society; it’s a responsibility for all, both the lead and the leader. And people must listen to those leading so that we all can be on the same page as we struggle to build our Nigeria where no man is oppressed.
“I want our brothers from the South to tell us things they are not comfortable with, which are being done here, because all of you here are representatives of your various communities living with us.
“Tell us what you think we should do to make life better for everybody, and we will tell you too what to do to make life better for our people living with you, because we are a great family and we will continue to extend that hand of love to everybody, irrespective of tribe or religion or political leanings.
“We keep on calling on everyone to maintain peace and allow constituted authorities take up these issues. We will continue to pressurise them, untill they find solution to this dastardly act.
“We will talk about issues affecting our women and youth – drug abuse – it has been there and getting out of hand, we will discuss this during the meeting to see how we can assist authorities on how to bring this to the minimum level.
“Drug abuse by women and youth is a very serious issue, we will discuss that and other insecurity issues affecting this country.
“We will also discuss issue concerning IDPs, because I was told there is about 50,000 orphans in each camp. If we allow those children to grow up in IDP camps, without knowing their parents, then we have a big problem in our hands.
“We will know how we can take some of them as our own children. We have started doing that, we have taken 150 children, and we will educate them to highest level.”
The Nation
