A Sokoto State High Court has issued an order restraining Governor Ahmed Aliyu from sacking two of the 15 district heads as the controversy on the proposed traditional institution law rages in Sokoto state.
Recalled that the state government had earlier removed the affected district heads from their seats.
The development is coming at a time the executive bill for the amendment of the Local Government Law, affecting the appointment of district and village heads, to confer him with exclusive power to appoint traditional rulers berths in the assembly.
The sacking of the 15 district heads and the proposed bill in Sokoto is currently generating swift reactions across the country.
The new order followed a suit separately filed by Alhaji Buhari Dahiru Tambuwal and Alhaji Abubakar Kassim, the District Heads of Tambuwal and Kebbe respectively.
The duo is among the traditional rulers removed by the state government, on the allegation of insubordination and aiding insecurity in the state.
While ruling on the matter, the presiding judge, Justice Kabiru Ibrahim Ahmed, ordered Governor Ahmed Aliyu, the state Attorney General and the Sokoto Sultanate Council to revert to status quo, pending the determination of the suit filed before him by the complainants, who were represented by Prof Ibrahim Abdullahi SAN.
Justice Ahmed, through two orders, 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.
Vice President, Kashim Shettima had earlier called on the Sokoto State Government to regard the Sultan as “an institution and an idea that must be preserved and protected,” while former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, demanded that traditional institutions must be protected from the “excesses of state governors.”
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), had in two separate statements, also warned Ahmed Aliyu to, “shelve the idea of removing the Sultan of Sokoto or whittling his powers” and insisting 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.
Meanwhile, the Sokoto state Legislature had passed the bill to its second reading and referred the matter to a House Committee. A public hearing on the bill is also scheduled for this week.
