The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, has said there is still high - level corruption in the country , noting that “ we cannot continue with these negative things .”
The monarch , who doubles as the President - General of the Nigerian Council for Islamic Affairs , called on the Federal Government to fish out the killer herdsmen stigmatising the Fulani ethnic group , noting that there are millions of Fulani in the country including him who are not herdsmen.
The Sultan made these remarks at the public presentation of a book , Dynamics of Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences in Abuja .
The book was written in honour of the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board , Prof . Ishaq Oloyede, where the Sultan was the Royal Father of the day.
The Sultan said Nigeria no longer have statesmen but men of state , adding that the government must find ways of getting things right in the country .
He said , “ We have so many issues coming up in our polity today and I will just pick one . Nigeria is a country where we don’ t celebrate innocent and honest people until after their death. After they are gone, you will now name universities , airports and other things after them .
“ The issue of N 36m being swallowed by a snake is a sad reality for our country . Where is our moral value ; where is our ethics? The reality is that we must wake up from our sleep . Let us not fail further. Things are bad. Corruption is at a very high level and it is left for us to fight it to a terminal end.
“ We cannot just sit down and think that things are okay . Things are not okay . We have to find ways of getting things right in this country . We cannot continue with these negative things. Nowadays and like I said recently in Rivers State , we don ’t have statesmen; we have men of state .”
The Sultan said it was unfair to label all Fulani as killers , noting that criminality must not be mixed with ethnicity .
He said , “ We don’ t accept criminals in our midst . We must fish them (the killer herdsmen) out and deal with them . The worst word you can hear nowadays is the Fulani issue . There are millions of Fulani who don ’t even know what a cow is . I am a Fulani and I am not a herder. I am a proud Fulani . But everyone believes that when you see a Fulani, he is a killer. It is not true . So , for anyone to label any particular ethnicity is wrong . Let ’s give criminals their ideal name; not Christian criminals, not Fulani criminals, not Muslim criminals. If the government has failed , let them call us to come and help out.
“ Uthman Dan Fodio founded the caliphate many years ago . He said conscience is an open wound , only truth can heal it . We must take a negative inner feeling away from us. We must not allow our biases to prevail over truth .”
Speaking on the JAMB state officers being investigated for various cases of corruption , Oloyede said they had been asked to return the government ’s money in their possession .
He said , “ It is a continuous process. When anyone is found to be unable to account for whatever belongs to the government , our first duty is to ask the person to refund. If the person refunds honourably, there will be little or no need to go further . But if they refuse , we will take a necessary step of calling on the security agencies to recover whatever belongs to the government.
“ But we know that there are many honourable people that even when they make mistakes , they are ready to rectify them . For these people, there is no problem.”