The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, has urged all ethnic groups in Nigeria to continue to live as brothers as God did not make a mistake in creating us as an entity.
Speaking as the chairman of the 2020 Leadership Award and Conference on Thursday in Abuja, the Sultan stated that breaking away would not stop existing problems peculiar to each group but to come together in solving them.
“If we are to go our 1 million ways, how do we survive? God Almighty will and can never make a mistake, that is his will and must be obeyed.
“Bringing us together as Nigerians is not a mistake and that is what God wanted. If he wants anything else he will do it in no time so we have to accept our religious beliefs as good Christians and Muslims.
“We all know we are from one source and creator.”
The Sultan maintained that those who are using religion to sow the seed of discord would fail in their quest as the country would not succumb to their atrocities.
He said, “We have to live together as one people to face these challenges of insecurity, no one can do it alone as the Commander-in-Chief or the Chief of Defence Staff. We must rise up to take the issue of insecurity as our own personal problem, we must all contribute to this challenge of insecurity and if we do that, in a couple of years we will be driving with our eyes closed from Kaduna to Abuja with no potholes; from Kaduna to Sokoto with clear roads and Maiduguri to Kano, that is our prayers in the next few weeks, month or years as we will get to that level.”
In his remarks, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo faulted the notion that the hasty amalgamation of kingdoms into an entity as Nigeria by the British was a hindrance to nation-building.
He stated that prior communication through trade and other areas indicated that the different entities were not strangers.
He, however, blamed the selfishness of elites for failing to build a sturdy institution that thrives on social consensus for which a society can stand.
“Since dominance was premised on some forms of consensus, the elite depended on a dubious way through the promotion of tribal and religious fault lines for legitimacy.”
