POLITICS TODAY

Nigerian Political News Media
2019, Northern monarchy and the dangers of partisanship
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By Mohammed Hassan Sahabi
The Sultanate is being strongly suspected of engaging in  campaigning for the PDP in sokoto state in preparation for the 2019 general elections. Long speculated of romancing with the State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, the sultanate is said to have deployed foot soldiers across the length and breadth of sokoto state to canvass support for Tambuwal as well as the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as the sultanate’s preferred choice in next year election.
Supporters of the APC, are alleging that the sultanate is also targeting President Buhari and Sen. Wamakko in a smare campaign through the promotion of negative propaganda against the person and character of the personalities among the state electorate. Nigerians. It could be recalled that the sultanate mounted surreptitious lobying for Tambuwal to be selected as vice President when president Buhari was hospitalized in London and was thought he had become incapacitated and might not return to office.
The unholy romance between Governor Tambuwal and the Sultanate could be traced to early last year when the EFCC stumbled on huge financial transactions involving the sokoto state government and the sultanate to the tune of seven hundred million naira(N700m), but which was claimed to be for the purchase of official residence for His Eminence, The Sultan of Sokoto, Alh. Sa’ad Abubakar the third.
Not many people believe the explanation of the state government giving that even the Sultanate couldn’t offer any rational explanation either for the controversial transaction. When the custodians of our cultural values are led by greed to abandon their core values and serve money,the respect they command vanishes.
The federal government should caution traditional rulers to disengage in partisan politics or deal with any of them found wanting to serve as a lesson to others. Part of the campaign of calumny against Wamakko was a story published by an online publication, Leadership.ng in which the Sultan was calling on the people not to vote for Wamakko and the Sokoto APC governorship candidate. This is unacceptable from a traditional and more so a religious leader, who should carry every body along and not to be partisan.
The news making the rounds in sokoto now is the allegation that the Sultanate is waging a political war against the former Governor Alibi Wamakko; and the Deputy Governor, now candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, for their decision not to decamp along with the state Governor, Aminu Tambuwal to the PDP. Concerned sokoto indigenes are seriously worried that the sultanate is being fingered as having a hand in the on going name-calling against the persons and characters of the Magatakarda and the Deputy Governor, Aliyu Ahmed by some Ulamas and marabouts believed to have been recruited to malign their names and integrity before the public. To many, this campaign against President Muhammadu Buhari and latest mudslinging and campaign of calumny against the APC leadership in sokoto is a clear manifestation of desperation by the Government and its supporters in the Sultanate to save their party and the Governor from imminent defeat in 2019 General election.
The dirty campaign against Senator Wamako and the Deputy Governor has been dismissed as wicked and deliberate attempt to disparage them before the good people of sokoto, because this only exist in the wild imagination of those spreading the story and their sponsors.The right thinking people in sokoto have not only dismissed this allegations as wicked and malicious, but are also wondering why the same allegations have not been made against Governor Aminu Tambuwal when the Magatakarda single handedly made him the governor in 2015.
Today in sokoto, the unholy involvement of the Sultanate in the state politics has done incalculable damage to the respect and prestige that the institution hitherto enjoyed. Our advice for the sultanate is to quickly retrace its step to save the institution from losing what ever is left of its image and respect.

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