He was about to depart for Saudi Arabia, but Sultan Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar spoke to Daily Trust's REkiya Mohamed, Friday Agboseina and Abdulfatai AbdulSalam on his five years on the great Sokoto throne. Excerpts:How did you feel when you were selected as successor to the Late Sultan Maccido'I just felt it was the will of the Almighty Allah. The Almighty decided to choose me; it is something I didn't ask for. It just came to me. Leadership is from the Almighty Allah as He said in the Holy Qur'an; He gives power to who He wants to give it to, He takes it away from a person when He wants. So, I just took it as the will of the Almighty Allah and I thank Him for that.Your experience as a retired military officer, do you see it as an asset to your present position'Well, you know that military life prepares you for almost everything and of course, right from my upbringing in the military as a young cadet, we were taught so many things. We were drilled to know what life is. Military training has been an asset to me. I went through it, spent almost all my life in the military. I rose to the rank of a very senior Colonel, though I left just before my promotion to a Brigadier -General. 1 could say that the military training I had, really prepared me for the challenges because military life itself is a challenge as you have to be disciplined, you have to be very confident and do things straight. By my training or exposure during my military life, most especially the best I could say, was when I was in Paskistan as a Military Adviser at the Nigerian High Commission. I was in Pakistan for 3 years with concurrent accreditation to Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. I think you know that, that is the most troubled spot in the world.What areas of changes or reforms are looking at in the administration of the Sultanate Council'I have not brought any reform into it. I have just kept on building on what I met on the ground as established by Sheikh Usman Danfodio. So any Sultan coming in will not bring any new thing, but will have to continue on that path, on the path of truth, on the path of holding very dearly Islamic values and beliefs and ensuring that we always do things based purely on Islamic tenets as enshrined in the Holy Qur'an and Suna of the Holy Prophet. So, I have not brought any reform. But in Hausa, people say sabon sarki sabon zamani; they believe that when a new ruler or king comes he brings new things, because human beings are different, even twins differ in some ways. Whenever a new person comes to a place, he studies the situation in the place, and if he is okay, he builds on the structures on the ground. This is my own way of doing things. Whatever we have done or we are doing, we have not deviated and we are not deviating from the solid foundation Sheikh Usman Danfodio has laid for the Caliphate. If you are talking about reform, maybe I do things in different ways based on my upbringing, and based on the dictates of the current situation. You can imagine 200 years ago, definitely, it was not the same as now, and even fifteen or ten years ago was not the same as now. You have more problems than you have 10 or 15 years ago. So, you have to be up and doing to meet these challenges. To me, whatever I am doing is just to ensure that whatever the Caliphate has established is maintained and strengthened so that we must always be relevant.Your Eminence Sir, you are a very busy man but what is your normal daily schedule like'You have seen it today. You should be able to write a book on what you have seen today.The interviewers were amazed wit h the tight schedule of the Sultan. He attended to myriad of official matters as well as visitors within and outside the state, including foreigners that spanned the whole day. Shortly after this interview that took place at about 9:30 pm, although originally scheduled to take place at 10am, the Sultan out to Saudi Arabia to represent President Goodluck Jonathan at the funeral of the late Saudi CrownPrince].As President General of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, what do you regard as the most pressing problems facing the Muslim Community in Nigeria right now'The most pressing problem I feel is that of the unity of the Muslim community, to speak in one voice, in the same manner to the best of our ability. The Almighty Allah in the Holy Qua'ran was very specific in the unity of the Muslim Ummah. The Almighty knows the importance of unity. So the unity of the Muslim Ummah is very paramount in whatever we are doing. We believe that when we are united, we constitute a formidable force to contribute our own quota to the development of this country. When we see wrong things, we go away from them. We will always practice those things as our religion dictates to us. I believe those are issues that the Almighty placed in our heart, the unity of Islam. I have been doing a lot since the Almighty brought me here five years ago, reaching out to everybody as far as South South.South South has a very large population of Muslims, we do all things together. When we meet, we speak openly to one another in love and respect as Islam, our religion demands from us.There was controversy regarding moon-sighting during the last Ramadan as well as Sallah. People say that reports were made to the Sultan's Palace that the moon was sighted but no announcement was made. What really happened'I think this is an issue I have talked about before and I don't want to keep talking about it again. The only thing I want to say is that the action we took was purely based on the dictates of Islam. We followed the rules and regulations of Islam in doing that as leaders and we believed we were right in what we did. We were right in the sense that over 95 to 96 percent of Muslim Ummah in this country went along with us. Majority always have their way. Others can have their say but still, it comes back to the same unity. I have talked about this thing. The only thing I want to make very categorical is that the actions we took were right, they were purely based on Islamic tenets, we have not deviated and we are very happy that we took those decisions and majority of the Muslim Umma in the country were happy with the decisions we took.To me, there is no controversy but some people went off the mark; that is life, but we are not fighting.That is why people say there is controversy, but I say no, there is none. We still meet even in Kaduna, we discussed some few things. What we are doing is being appreciated by the majority of the Nigerian Muslim Ummah. Of course in life, even in your own home there are some few who will disagree with you, they just don't like you and there is nothing you can do about it. We have not deviated from the truth of the facts of Islam. If anybody thinks we have deviated, they should come and tell us, but nobody. The good thing is that majority of Muslims Ummah are very happy with us. There is no controversy, it may be a misunderstanding. Because there are rules and regulations guiding our lives as Muslims and we followed those rules and regulations. We have not deviated and we will not deviate.You are now the Permanent Amirul Hajj. What is being done to address the major problems of the Hajj'We keep on meeting every day. We keep on meeting and meeting. We keep on dialoguing and talking to people. I just had a report yesterday from somebody in Medina that this was one of the most organized Hajj operations so far. But it is still not perfect because we keep monitoring every day. Now, we have a longer period to airlift our pilgrims, based on Saudi decision. They say we must airlift our pilgrims from this period to that period, we can't go beyond that. We have to take those weeks they gave us, may be, because of the congestion at Jeddah airport. We have to make our own programme to meet the dictates of the Saudi Arabian government. The only thing now is that people will spend more days in the Holy Land. That is why we are telling Pilgrims not to spend their money anyhow, but to conserve their money for feeding should they stay longer than necessary. For the Hajj operation, it is much better now than it used to be from five to six years ago. But it is still not perfect, there are still some hiccups here and there, but we are working on them to attain the desired standard.What are the goals you have set for yourself to achieve in the next five or ten years as Sultan and NSCIA President General'My only goal is to see me performing my duties as the Almighty Allah placed on my shoulders to the best of my ability, for the sake of Islam and Muslims and the best of my country, so that whatever I do, Muslims will say we are happy with that. I do not want anybody or me to deviate. We keep on working based on what the Almighty placed on our shoulders and praying always for Him to guide us. The most important thing is to see a unified Muslim Ummah in this country doing everything same time, same dayand helping this country to move forward. To move Nigeria forward, let's play our own part, Muslims are the architect of modern world, that is, modern civilization. I want to see Muslims in Nigeria also playing that part of making Nigeria a very modern place because we have very highly intelligent Muslims professionals, we have very committed and patriotic Muslim professionals all over. Our religion expects us to do nothing less than to help humanity. While you are helping humanity, you are also helping yourself because you are part of humanity and helping in doing new things for your country; and you are helping yourself because you are part of the country as you don't have any other country.When new things come to Nigeria, they come to you and your family. I want to see Muslims playing very active part in all spheres of our life in this country. Now that every day we see crisis here, violence there, they are un-Islamic, we all know that they are un-Islamic. You know we do condemn such things. The more people should understand that Islam is not violence. No, Islam is not violence and I keep on saying it. If there are crises between Christians and Muslims, it's normal in life, but there is no crises between Christianity and Islam. That is what people should know, because they are religions of God.
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