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Sultan raises alarm,says Nigeria ‘appears to
be adrift’ Newsdiaryonline Wed Nov
23,2011
The Sultan
Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan
of Sokoto, today reviewed the
state of the nation and warned that
Nigeria has begun to drift. In the view of the
Sultan who is also the
President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic
Affairs, despite the nation’s unprecedented resources,
development has failed to match the national wealth.
“Corruption
has emasculated our progress,” the Sultan lamented, adding that,
“poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brinks,
fuelling and confounding social conflicts; inter-communal crisis
has extracted heavy toll in both human lives and property.
“Persistent insecurity has generated panic
and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructures are far
from meeting the needs of the nation; and the country appears to
be adrift and at the core of all these, is ignorance and moral
decay.”
Abubakar spoke in Zaria, shortly after his
investiture as the sixth Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU), by President Goodluck Jonathan who was
represented on the occasion by the Minister of Education, Prof.
Rukkayat Ahmed Rufai.
The Sultan
also noted that the reform of the tertiary education
sector cannot be effective without putting in place, the
progressive developments required in the basic and senior
secondary education sectors.In his words, “our state
governments, especially here in the north, must begin to realize
the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and
to take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges.”
He praised the founding fathers of the ABU,
especially, the late Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and
urged the authorities of the school to continue to abide by the
cardinal principles on which the ABU was founded.
“For us in the university, this means a
number of things: firstly, we cannot build a first-rate
university without building a reasonable consensus on how to
move the university forward.
“Our vision for this great institution must
be a collective one where all major stakeholders take
responsibility for their actions and take pride in discharging
their varied roles.
‘Whenever we allow factionalism and
primordial sentiments to dictate our attitudes and actions, we
are telling the whole world that we are not ready to discharge
this historic responsibility.
“Secondly, we cannot be expected to
establish the best university in Africa without embracing the
ethos of excellence and hard work.
“We must also search for the best and the
brightest and encourage them to join the ranks of the community.
Our processes and procedures must be transparent and fair enough
to ensure equity and justice for all,” he said.
Th
This is the document referred to in the Witness
Statement on Oath of Clifford O. Kokogho as
“Exhibit
COK.2”
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