Nigeria: 18th sultan of Sokoto dies at 92

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - Ibrahim Dasuki, a former Nigerian sultan of Sokoto, has died at age 92, authorities said late Monday.

“He will be buried on Tuesday after Salat Dhuhr [noon prayer] at Hubare Shehu [Sheikh’s mausoleum], a place where the founders of the Sokoto caliphate are interned,” said Faruk Ladan, a spokesman for the sultanate.

Dasuki, crowned the 18th sultan and head of the country's Muslim population in 1988, was deposed in 1996 after he reportedly fell out with the country's then military dictator Sani Abacha. Analysts had linked his dethronement to his decision to authorize Eid prayer on Arafat day contrary to Islamic rulings: the first time in Nigeria’s history.

But authorities at the time said he was dethroned for causing disaffection within the people and flouting government orders. He was then banished to Yola, in the northeast, but he later returned to live in the northwestern Kaduna state.

Dasuki was the father of Nigeria’s former national security advisor Sambo Dasuki who is being tried for allegedly diverting some $2.1 billion of funds meant for purchase of military hardware in the fight against Boko Haram.

Reputed for being a cosmopolitan and well-educated sultan, Dasuki was succeeded as sultan by Muhammadu Maccido who would later die in a plane crash in 2006.