Sultan of Nigeria? No Way

Written by oranyan

I will start this piece with an extensive quote from Femi Abbas, a columnist with the Nation newspaper in Nigeria.
 
The pedestrian attempt to justify a "Sultan of Nigeria" title is an assault on basic understanding.

All of those who gathered at the proclamation site had, at one time or the other, been at the forefront of subjugating Yorubaland in favor of either northern military rule or their civilian apologists.

 No matter how highly placed an individual is, that individual is not infallible, hence the presence of such an individual should not be intimidating to the extent that the rationality of an action in his or her presence cannot be questioned.

Here is a quote from Fem Abbas:
“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 odomain and not of localities.

Why should that of Nigeria be different? After all, 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?”

The three Sultanates of Oman, Bahrain and Brunei, which Femi Abass used as justifications, are inhabited by Muslims, by and large they are Muslim countries, so they can choose whatever Islamic titles they want for their leadership.

But is "Nigeria" an Islamic country? Of course not. So why then a "sultan of Nigeria?" Mischief. Period.
"Nigeria" is the umbrella for all sorts of evil, and this is one of them.

Yoruba Muslims are under no compulsion to accept a Sultanate they had no input into creating, for Islam in Yorubaland predated the Caliphate. That Muslims in Yorubaland had always initiated moves that become national in islamic affairs does not mean all of such moves are altruisic and acceptable to all Muslims.


Recall also that this proclamation is coming on the heels of the debate, among Muslims, on which day the Eid falls, pitching the Southern (Yoruba) muslims against the north. Abdul-Lateef Adegbite, one of the attendees at the proclamation, was a champion of the review of the day of the Eid. Eid-el-Kabir, when the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, under the Sultan's presidency, declared December 7, 2008 as the day of the Eid, many Yoruba Muslims cried foul, basing their argument on the fact that Muslim non-pilgrims are supposed to be fasting when pilgrims are on the mountain .


This had always been a bone of contention. But this piece is not about who is right or wrong on that issue, but to expose the politics behind the proclamation of that title.

Femi Abbas claimed that the declaration was made in the" South by Southern Muslims on their own volition" and then asked "what can anybody say to controvert it?"

The question is: was the declaration on the agenda for the day or was the day advertised as the foundation-laying ceremony of an Islamic Vacation Center?

It is on record that the loss of Ilorin to the jihadists was as a result of the mischief perpetrated by Muslims in Ilorin. The subterfuge that characterised the Ilorin campaign is what those who made the proclamation are now engaged in. It is a supreme assault on our intelligence for anyone to proclaim a particular religious title on a diverse religious entity.
 
The attempt by Femi Abbas to cloak the proclamation under the guise of anti-colonialism is even more laughable. The Sultan of Sokoto Caliphate was an expression of the political authority over the imperial areas of Dan Fodio's Jihad conquests.

The sultan was the leader of the emirs, the war leaders who carried the banner of the Caliphate to their conquered areas, hence all those areas with emirs are appendages of Sokoto. But then, the march to "dip the koran into the sea" was stopped at Osogbo.

A new strategy has now been developed. They want to dip the koran into the sea by this proclamation. This will not stand. Yoruba Muslims have to make a choice and the time for that choice is now.


"Unity" is an issue on which muslims agree upon; but what has happened has nothing to do with unity but a politically motivated surreptitious move, as has always been the modus operandi of the caliphate, to overrun areas of opposition.

A cursory look at its history will reveal the fact that it has never taken on any formidable opponent head on and won; hence its resort to subterfuge, mischief and in this situation, it found accomplices in the Femi Abbas, Alao Arisekolas et al. only waiting to strike the death blow.

Again, Yoruba Muslims have to ask or answer this question: Was the proclamation of "Sultan of Nigeria" on the agenda for that day?

For such a weighty proclamation could not have been an after-thought, or a sudden, unplanned move to acknowledge the leader in the course of the proceedings.

It was a surreptitious move to kill two birds with one stone-- to have the Sultan's authority as unquestionable such that muslims are bound to follow any directives from him (and who else will benefit form this other than those southern muslims who made it happen?) and with his military background, coupled with the resurgence of northern irredentism, what else can be better than have the muslims in the "opposition west" submit to the Sultan's authority?

All that will be left is to mop up politically. Hence, the need for Yoruba Muslims to ask and answer the question raised above.