by Mohammed Bello Doka
2 July, 2026.
There is an effort, quietly but steadily unfolding across the northern states, by some Islamic scholars and allegedly traditional rulers to mount a campaign of religious and traditional endorsement for President Bola Tinubu ahead of 2027. These revered figures, whose words carry immense weight in our communities, are being courted to convince us that the President deserves our votes once more. They want us to believe that a second term will bring the transformation of Arewa into an El Dorado, a promised land of prosperity and peace. We are told to ignore the crippling insecurity, the suffocating poverty, and the outright negligence that have ravaged the North, and to instead trust in these assurances from those we hold in high esteem.
Let it be known that we hold these Islamic scholars and traditional rulers in the deepest respect. We revere their wisdom, honor their positions, and pray that Almighty Allah will continue to protect them, guide their steps, and lead them aright in all their endeavors. Their service to our faith and our culture is beyond question, and we acknowledge their right to counsel their followers as they see fit. Our loyalty is by no way in question, however, the question begging for answers is this: if the Sultan of Sokoto, the highest-ranking traditional and spiritual leader of the North, was so blatantly disregarded in this first term, when the President desperately needed the Sultan's goodwill, which other traditional ruler or sheikh will he listen to when he returns for a second term? Does a ruler who ignores the counsel of the Sultan require the counsel of a District Head or a Shiekh?
It was on March 15, 2026, a date that will be remembered for the stark illustration of political impotence, that the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa'adu Abubakar III, walked into the Presidential Villa for a private audience with President Bola Tinubu. The photographs of their meeting, all warm smiles and handshakes, were beamed across the nation. Yet, beneath the veneer of courtesy, a critical matter was reportedly laid at the President's feet. The Sultan, the spiritual and traditional leader of Nigeria's Muslims, is said to have made a direct appeal: concerning the detention of former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai. The message was clear and urgent: release him or charge him to court.
Weeks have passed since that meeting. El-Rufai, who has been in the custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission since February 2026, remains detained, his liberty hanging by a thread of judicial conditions that critics argued appear designed to be unattainable. In April and May, courts granted him bail, but the conditions are a reportedly a cruel mockery of justice. He is required to produce sureties who must be Level 17 civil servants with verifiable landed properties in the highbrow Abuja districts of Maitama or Asokoro. Furthermore, he must secure an attestation letter from the Kaduna State Traditional Council. When his legal team argued these conditions are practically impossible to meet, a Federal High Court in Abuja upheld them, ensuring the former governor remains in custody. The question that echoes from the North is deafening: if the Sultan of Sokoto cannot secure justice or even a fair hearing for a son of the North, who can?
Juxtapose this Kafkaesque legal odyssey with the fate of a Yoruba kinsman of the President, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho. Igboho, a terrorist who fled Nigeria in 2021 after a bloody raid by security agencies and was declared wanted, has seen his fortunes dramatically reversed. Following interventions by prominent South-West traditional rulers, including the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rashidi Ladoja, and the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, President Tinubu removed Igboho's name from the wanted list. The terrorist is now free, his alleged crimes seemingly forgiven after the royal seal of approval from the South-West.
The disparity is jarring. For the same President who can, at the behest of traditional rulers, wipe clean the slate of a man who exchanged fire with state forces and was declared wanted for terrorism, to disregard the counsel of the Sultan of Sokoto, is a profound statement of regional and political bias. Let no one speak to me of the rule of law in this context. Which rule of law was applied to Sunday Igboho? Which rule of law allowed for his name to be expunged from the list of wanted persons based on the intervention of traditional rulers, without a trial or any formal judicial process? And which rule of law permits the continued incarceration of El-Rufai on bail conditions that are manifestly designed to be impossible? The same principle that freed Igboho based on the plea of traditional rulers must apply to El-Rufai. If that principle is selectively applied, it is not justice; it is mere political expediency dressed in judicial robes.
In the Maliki school of thought, justice is not a mere virtue; it is the very foundation of governance. The great Maliki scholar, Imam Al-Qarafi, established a cardinal principle that judgments change with the change of time, place, intentions and customs. This principle, which aims for flexibility and the public good, is not a license for tyranny. It is a guide for a ruler to adapt to circumstances while upholding the highest tenets of justice. The judgments applied to El-Rufai are not a change to meet a new time; they are a perversion of justice to achieve a political end. The same school of thought stresses that it is the duty of the Muslim ruler to feed the poor and the needy, and to establish justice. How does the systematic neglect of the North, where poverty is endemic, align with this sacred duty?
These scholars and traditional rulers are being mobilized to endorse a leader who has demonstrated that the pleas of the Sultan are not as weighty as those of an Oba. Even the respected Sheikh Alkali Abubakar Zaria was recently suspended for his scathing criticism of the President, an act that highlights the suppression of dissenting voices. We are being led to a precipice by those who seek to use our faith and our traditions to legitimize a dispensation that has failed us. If a second term is secured, will the promise of El Dorado be any different from the hollow promises of the first term? Or will the North, having been ignored in its pleas, simply be taken for granted?
We are not blinded by the rhetoric of transformation. A leader who is deaf to the voice of the Sultan is deaf to the pulse of the North. As the revered Tan Sri Professor S.M. Naquib al-Attas reminds us, justice is a condition wherein everything is in its right and proper place. When the scales of justice are so brazenly tilted, when a man languishes in custody for political reasons while a terrorist is freed for the same, and when the highest spiritual authority is rendered powerless, there can be no right and proper place for the North in this administration. We ask these scholars and rulers: how can you, in good conscience, ask us to trust a man who has shown he will not listen to your own leader? The trust has been broken. The question is not whether we should vote for Tinubu in 2027, but whether we can ever trust a government that so blatantly disregards the voice of its own people.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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