Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, Sultan of Sokoto, says Nigeria may not know peace if people do not stop to criminalise tribes in the country as a result of the herdsmen crisis.
“I’m a Fulani man but I’m never a herder. There are over four million Fulani in this country most of whom have nothing to do with cattle,” the Sultan said on Wednesday in Abuja at the public presentation of a book titled ‘Dynamics of Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences’, published in honour of Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar of JAMB.
“To stereotype a particular tribe or ethnic as criminal is wrong. Tens and tens of people are killed every day in the name of economic survival. People should stop criminalizing others if we want peace in this country.”
He argued that herdsmen crisis is neither ethnic nor religion as being painted in the media and by other Nigerians, but a case of economic survival which, he said, must be tackled and resolved.
“Herdsmen crisis is simply economy survival which needs to be tackled and resolved. We need to take the negative thoughts away from us; our moral level in this country has gone so low,” he said.
“It is so sad that people are dying every day while our governors and politicians are well-guarded by security men. We do not have statesmen; we have men of the state; we have governors who only see their immediate environment as their own; it is no longer a state for all. We need to sit together and proffer solutions on how to move this nation forward.”
Speaking on the attributes of Oloyede, in whose honour the book was published, the Sultan lamented that honest and upright people are not usually celebrated in the country until they are gone
“That is when government names schools, hospitals, airport and other edifices after them,” he said. “A dead person is gone and it is important to be celebrated while alive. Oloyede is an honest and an incorruptible person.”
The Monarch remarked that the JAMB Registrar is not an ‘extremist’, contrary to fears by many when he was appointed to head the board. He recalled that they resulted to name calling because he (Oloyede) would not allow them free hand at the board.
“He has returned over N7billion to government coffer and because he would not play the game the way they wanted, they were calling him names,” he said