“We must throw away our lazy attitude” – Sultan to Northern leaders

Sultan of Sokoto and leader of all Muslims in Nigeria Sa’ad Abubakar III has given political and traditional leaders in the North a wake up call, telling them to take the development of the region seriously.

According to The Guardian, he made this known at a joint meeting of the Northern Governors’ Forum and traditional rulers at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House in Kaduna on Thursday.

“During our last meeting six months ago, we spent a lot of time to discuss many things, but from the earlier discussion, is the north much better now than we were six months ago? If yes, it means we are making progress, if no, why?

All that has been the problem is to implement decisions taken at such a meeting by everybody. I think we are not short of solutions to all our problems, what we are short of, all of us, is sincerity and commitment to really do what we say publicly. If we don’t change, our situation will continue to get worse.

At this meeting, we need to discuss what came out of the January meeting, how far we have gone in trying to implement some of the decisions we have taken and chart the way forward.

I should remind us, so many of us who are also religious leaders, to be cautious over inciting utterances and ambiguous words on issues that shouldn’t have been brought up.

What we do or how we go about some of these issues, you don’t make ambiguous statements which will be very difficult to withdraw. We are aware of the implications because the social media is so negative now that people formulate stories that never existed and polish them to be true,” the monarch said.

The Sultan, who commended some of the governors for their hardwork in promoting education in the North, added that traditional rulers are committed to partnering with them in their development projects.

“But we have to and we must be up and doing, we must throw away our lazy attitude because whatever problems we have in our region, we are more educated to find solution to them. I assure you of our support, and you must continue to see us (traditional rulers) as partners in this long and tough journey to emancipating our people from the grip of poverty and lazy life.”