Court Restrains Sokoto Govt From Sacking 2 District Heads

Amidst the controversy over the proposed traditional institution law in Sokoto State, a State High Court has restrained Governor Ahmed Aliyu from sacking two of the 15 district heads.

The state government had earlier removed the two traditional rulers from office.

The order followed a suit separately filed by Alhaji Buhari Dahiru Tambuwal and Alhaji Abubakar Kassim, the District Heads of Tambuwal and Kebbe, respectively. They are among the traditional rulers removed by the state government over allegations of insubordination and aiding insecurity in the state.

In his ruling, the trial judge, Justice Kabiru Ibrahim Ahmed, ordered Governor Aliyu, the state attorney general, and the Sokoto Sultanate Council to revert to the status quo pending the determination of the suit filed by the plaintiffs through their counsel, Prof Ibrahim Abdullahi (SAN).

Justice Ahmed, in the order, directed the defendants, their agents, servants, privies or assigns or any person acting on their behalf to “maintain status quo and or stay all actions and or further actions in connection with all matters dealing with and or appertaining to the removal and or dethronement of districts heads in Sokoto State,” particularly those of Kebbe and Tambuwal, pending the hearing and determination of the motion for interlocutory injunction duly filed before the court.

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This development came as Governor Aliyu’s bill for amending the Local Government Law, affecting the appointment of district and village heads, confers him with exclusive power to appoint traditional rulers.

Already, the sacking of the 15 district heads and the proposed bill in Sokoto have generated reactions across the country, with the Vice President, Kashim Shettima, calling on the Sokoto state government to regard the Sultan as “an institution and an idea that must be preserved and protected.”

For his part, former Vice President and PDP presidential Candidate Atiku Abubakar demanded that traditional institutions be protected from the “excesses of state governors.”

In two separate statements, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) warned the governor to “shelve the idea of removing the Sultan of Sokoto or whittling his powers” and insisted that, “by all intents and purposes,” the governor was targeting the monarch and planning to create a parallel Sultanate Council under the guise of the new law.