SAN FRANCISCO, July 27, (THEWILL) – The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III on Thursday condemned what he considered as the lazy attitude to governance by some governors of Nigeria’s northern states.
He held that the governors must show practical commitment towards the discharge of their duties by avoiding procrastination and implementing decisions capable of turning around the poor state of the north.
Speaking at a joint meeting of the Northern Nigeria Governors’ Forum and traditional rulers at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House in Kaduna, Abubakar maintaned that the northern elite must throw away their lazy attitude.
He urged traditional and religious leaders to guard their utterances and avoid inciting words which could cause chaos, saying that negative stories could be circulated by rumour mongers on the social media.
“During our last meeting six months ago, we spent a lot of time to discuss many things, but from the earlier discussion, is the north much better now than we were six months ago? If yes, it means we are making progress, if no, why?
“All that has been the problem is to implement decisions taken at such a meeting by everybody. I think we are not short of solutions to all our problems, what we are short of, all of us, is sincerity and commitment to really do what we say publicly. If we don’t change, our situation will continue to get worse.
“At this meeting, we need to discuss what came out of the January meeting, how far we have gone in trying to implement some of the decisions we have taken and chart the way forward.
“I should remind us, so many of us who are also religious leaders, to be cautious over inciting utterances and ambiguous words on issues that shouldn’t have been brought up.
“What we do or how we go about some of these issues, you don’t make ambiguous statements which will be very difficult to withdraw. We are aware of the implications because the social media is so negative now that people formulate stories that never existed and polish them to be true,” the Sultan said.
While commending some governors for hard work and resilience as regards education in the north, he said the traditional rulers were collectively committed to making the north the envy of the rest of the world.
“But we have to and we must be up and doing, we must throw away our lazy attitude because whatever problems we have in our region, we are more educated to find solution to them. I assure you of our support, and you must continue to see us (traditional rulers) as partners in this long and tough journey to emancipating our people from the grip of poverty and lazy life.”
In his remarks, Chairman of the forum and governor of Borno State, Alhaji Kashim Shettima listed the current issues threatening the unity of the country as the agitation for restructuring, creation of a Biafran State and the Fulani herdsmen’s attacks on communities.
Shettima, who was represented by the Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari at the two-day meeting, called for prompt action to tackle these issues, warning that Nigeria might not survive under such divisive tendencies.
He said, “Agreed that being citizens of a democratic country, Nigerians are entitled to exercising their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and association, and the clamour for the restructuring of the country falls within the purview of these freedoms. But the exercise of such rights outside the confines of responsibility is not acceptable.
“The resort to shenanigans, hate speech, and sometimes incitement to violence by organisations such as IPOB and MASSOB must be unconditionally condemned as they are inimical to national unity, stability, peaceful coexistence and national security.
“These elements must be encouraged to pursue their agitations within processes enshrined in our constitution and with the full and willing participation of all parts of our nation.”
The governor then challenged southern leaders to condemn the agitation the way northern leaders condemned the ultimatum given by some northern youths to Igbo residing in the north to leave by October 1.
