Loading ...SOKOTO, NIGERIA — A wave of sharp cynicism and public disillusionment is sweeping across Nigeria following a sudden, high-profile intervention by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III. The revered monarch, who serves as the spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims and a permanent patron/trustee of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), has shattered his long, controversial silence on the nation’s security crisis—but only after the brutal assassination of the Benue State MACBAN Chairman, Ardo Muhammad.
To millions of Nigerians who have watched entire agrarian communities in the Middle Belt, South-East, and Southern Kaduna systematically pillaged by suspected Fulani militia with little to no public condemnation from the Sokoto Caliphate, the Sultan’s sudden vocal outrage has painted a deeply suspicious and polarizing picture.
The Spark: The Killing of Ardo Muhammad in Otukpo
The development follows the deadly ambush of the Benue MACBAN leader on Friday afternoon. Ardo Muhammad and a companion, Yakubu Isah, were gunned down by unidentified assailants in Okudu village within the Otukpo Local Government Area. The chairman was returning from a security peace meeting convened by the Divisional Police Officer of neighboring Ohimini LGA when his vehicle was peppered with bullets.
While local authorities under Governor Hyacinth Alia scrambled to douse the palpable tension in the state, the Sultan immediately issued a fiery, swift condemnation of the killing, demanding that security agencies hunt down the perpetrators with absolute urgency.
“Selective Sympathy”: Nigerians React with Shock and Suspicion
While the Sultan’s call for justice is legally and morally sound, the timing and selectivity of his utterance have triggered intense backlash from civil society organizations and socio-cultural groups who historically viewed him as a neutral, fatherly figure in the complex Nigerian space.
For months, as banditry and militia forces displaced thousands of farmers in Benue’s Agatu, Kwande, and Logo regions, the apex northern traditional council remained largely tight-lipped, rarely offering direct presidential-level pressure to halt the carnage. The contrast in speed between the Sultan’s silence on dead peasant farmers and his immediate outrage over a slain Miyetti Allah chief has left many questioning his neutrality.
“The Sultan’s reaction is a textbook example of selective sympathy,” an Abuja-based security analyst told 247ureports. “When hundreds of native farmers are slaughtered in their sleep, we get generic press statements from secondary secretaries or total silence. But the moment a MACBAN official is hit, the entire machinery of the Caliphate wakes up. This only deepens the ethnic distrust tearing Nigeria apart.”
The 247ureports Takeaway: A Fractured Moral Authority
The traditional institution in Nigeria derives its power from perceived absolute fairness. By choosing to speak out selectively on a specific victim because of institutional or ethnic ties to MACBAN, critics argue that the Sultan has inadvertently reinforced the dangerous narrative that some Nigerian lives are more valuable than others.
As the Benue State Police Command steps up investigations into the Otukpo ambush, the greater challenge lies in repairing the fractured trust between the populace and the traditional elite in Abuja and Sokoto. If Nigeria is to survive this current security abyss, its leaders—spiritual and political—must condemn the shedding of blood with the same energy, regardless of whether the victim carries a shepherd’s staff or a farmer’s hoe.
247ureports is tracking the security deployment along the Otukpo-Ohimini axis to see if retaliatory violence breaks out. Stay tuned.
