Bafarawa, Wamakko and Sultan
However, the reports point to an unhealthy opposition calculated at causing serious damage to the mutual respect and understanding between the Sultanate council and government. Accusing fingers have been pointed at the opposition as the likely sponsors of the rumours. It seems that the opposition, being led by Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, the immediate past […]
However, the reports point to an unhealthy opposition calculated at causing serious damage to the mutual respect and understanding between the Sultanate council and government. Accusing fingers have been pointed at the opposition as the likely sponsors of the rumours.
It seems that the opposition, being led by Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, the immediate past governor of Sokoto State, no doubt, is trying to ensure that Governor Wamakko falls victim of such conflicts. It is noteworthy that the Bafarawa administration did not have a cordial relationship with the Sultanate Council. One of the reasons why Bafarawa was not happy with the Sultanate was because
Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III did not support is presidential ambition. And the Sultan’s position cannot be faulted because, even as governor of Sokoto state, Bafarawa fell out with the ordinary people because of his snobbish attitude.
One of the glaring errors Bafarawa into was that he sponsored an executive bill, which he pressurised the state’s House of Assembly to pass into law. The law removed the powers of the Sultan and the Sultanate Council to appoint ward and village heads and vested that authority in the governor’s hands. Bafarawa had put in place measures that crippled the financial strength of the Sultanate until Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko restored the powers and financial rights and privileges of the Sultanate Council.
Returning to the reports on the supposed feud between the Sultanate and the governor, it is noteworthy that there was a contradiction. The report admitted that those traditional rulers relieved of their positions were involved in misconducts for which several disciplinary measures were taken against them by the state government. One of them, Baraden Wamakko Abubakar Jabbi, was said to have used a derogatory language on Governor Wammako. For goodness sake, how can a subordinate be rude to his superior in the public?
The reporters and analysts should have been objective enough by digging further to confirm and comment that those traditional rulers actually committed those offences. They abandoned this core professional value, to make a mountainsout of molehills and raise false alarm that the disciplinary measures imposed on them was brewing tension when in actual fact, Sokoto State is calm and people are moving about their normal businesses without fear of molestation.
It was a biased and false report that the Sultan and Wamakko are having problems because the sultan is frowning at the presence of unemployed youth in the state. As a matter of fact, Wamakko personally made sure that the so called hoodlums are the first and prime beneficiaries of his poverty reduction programme where youths and women are taught how to produce solar powered electricity and boreholes, mattresses, shoes, candles, chalks, perfumes etc; skills acquisition programmes, transportation scheme, welfarism etc. Wamakko is reportedly committed to the rehabilitation of the youths. So, this should not have been a source of conflict between the governor and the Sultan. It is a known fact that Governor Wamakko is deeply committed to the welfare of the Sokoto youth.
The examination of state government books and financial records by auditors is a routine government function. The mere examination of the financial records of the government, which may include the books of the sultanate council is a normal government procedure because the council receives government subvention and this does not mean any rift between both of them as wrongly portrayed in the report. However, both the Sultan himself and the Governor have stated publicly that the sultanate is not under any probe.
Again, the advice given by the sultanate to the state government on chieftaincy matters is constitutional and does not mean rift or feud as the report wrongly called it. Reliable sources demonstrate that the positions of the sultanate council and the State Government on the discipline of erring traditional rulers, some of whom are over indulged in partisan politics, are harmonized. It is not for enemies of the government to use the matter to make the state ungovernable and create trouble where none exist.
As a matter of fact, Wamakko’s government enjoys good and wonderful relationship with the sultanate as attested to by Magajin Garin Sokoto, Alhaji Hassan Danbaba, in a press statement on behalf of the council.
If there is any government which had sour relationship with the sultanate council in recent times, it was Bafarawa’s government.
Wamakko has absolute respect for the Sultanate, not only that he is royal, coming from the Al-Ansar group which gave shelter and support to the renowned Jihadist, Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio in 1804, Wamakko is also a member of the Baraden Wamakko family, which is a member of the committee of kingmakers and the Sultanate council.
Okadigbo can be reached through [email protected]