North is the worst place to live in Nigeria - Sultan of Sokoto

Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar lll

 

The Sultan of Sokoto and President of the Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar lll, has describes "North" as the worst region to live in Nigeria.

He said this at the 4th Quarter Meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) in Abuja last week.

"We must obey all laws, if we are not law abiding", the monarch said, on scrapping of controversial police unit SARS. "We have heard people calling for the scrapping of SARS, the President has done that and we later said, bring police back. We cannot do without the police, we cannot do without our security agencies. No matter bad the security agencies are, there are still excellent officers.

 

"What we need to do is to flush out the bad elements from the security agencies and to reform the agencies and have a better. Abusing the police, abusing soldiers, abusing security agencies would not augur well for us because, by the time we drag into anarchy, everybody would be on its, and then there would be serious problem in the country.

"Security situation in Northern Nigeria has assumed a worrisome situation. Few weeks ago, over 76 persons were killed in a community in Sokoto in a day. I was there with the governor to commiserate  with the affected community. Unfortunately, you don't hear these stories in the media because it is in the North. we have accepted the fact that the North does not have strong media to report the atrocities of these bandits.

"People think North is safe but that assumption is not true, Infact, it's the worst place to be in this country because bandits go around in the villages, households and market, buy things, pay and collect change, with their weapons openly displayed. These facts I know because I am at the center of it.

"I am not only a traditional ruler, I am also a religious leader. So, I am in a better place to tell the story. I can speak for the North in this regard because I am fully aware of the security challenges there. We have to to sincerely and seriously find solutions to the problem, otherwise we will find ourselves soon, in a situation where we would loose sleep because of insecurity.

"The insecurity in the north is so high that people are even afraid of traveling from Funtau to Zaria, a journey of about 48 or 50 miles. Not to talk of Sokoto to Abuja or to Kano.

"We know what we are going through. We are so insecure in the north that people are loosing hope. People keep things in the house so that when the bandits come, they would let them be free", the Monarch said.