The late sultan was widely revered for his peace efforts

A new Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's 70m Muslims, has been announced.

He is Colonel Sada Abubakar,53, brother of Sultan Mohammadu Maccido, who was killed in a plane crash on Sunday, along with 95 others.

Col Abubakar had been serving as Nigeria's military attache to Pakistan.

Like all sultans, Col Abubakar is descended from Uthman Dan Fodio, who led a 19th Century jihad to spread Islam across northern Nigeria.

I want to congratulate the state government for choosing a consensus sultan Muhammadu Bello, trader

The BBC's Ardo Abdullah Hazzad in the northern city of Sokoto, says that thousands of people have gathered to celebrate the appointment outside the imposing sultan's palace.

Easy-going

Col Abubakar is to greet the crowds after earlier going to thank Sokoto State Governor Attahiru Bafarawa for naming him as the 20th sultan.

Col Abubakar was chosen by a group of traditional rulers, known as kingmakers, who passed a shortlist of three to Mr Bafarawa for the final decision.

"May he continue where the late sultan stopped," trader Muhammadu Bello told Reuters news agency.

"I want to congratulate the state government for choosing a consensus sultan."

Col Abubakar, who has also served with West Africa's peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, was top of the list and so the governor was expected to select him.

He is described as being relaxed and easy-going.

The Sokoto Caliphate founded by Dan Fodio became one of the largest pre-colonial states in Africa.

The sultan's role includes announcing the start and the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Nigeria.

The BBC's Alex Last in Nigeria says the sultan is meant to be a symbol of good governance and Islamic unity.

The late sultan was widely respected for trying to ease tensions between Nigeria's Muslim and Christians communities, which occasionally spill over into sectarian violence.

His son and grandson were also killed when a Boeing 737 flight operated by ADC airlines crashed just after take-off from the capital, Abuja, on its way to Sokoto.

Nigeria held three days of national mourning and President Olusegun Obasanjo went to Sokoto to pay his respects.

It was the third major Nigeria plane crash in just over a year.

Robot  Villager

# 1 A new Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's 70m Muslims, has...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 02.11.2006 08:20

Oghre  Villager

# 2 I just hope the new Sultan will help remove the slaughter of Christians Posted by Oghre| 02.11.2006 08:35

cdimkpa  Villager

# 3 70 million muslims? Where is that statistic coming from? Posted by cdimkpa| 02.11.2006 08:47

Oghre  Villager

# 4 cdimkpa, Why do you think the north hates census and do everything to tamper with it always? They don’t want an honest count, that way they can quote ridiculous numbers anytime they bloody well like. Shame that Sani Yerima was not on that plane. Posted by Oghre| 02.11.2006 09:13

Obi  Villager

# 5 Nigerians are usually very careless with population figures. 70 million Muslims in Nigeria? Where are they? For some days now, some mischievous people have been peddling that number through CNN and some other world media organizations. And I ask them: With which benchmarks? Excuse me! Posted by Obi| 02.11.2006 09:49

AfroCynic  Villager

# 6 I just dont undertand why it bothers people if there are seventy million muslims........ you all need to be worried about inter tribal cohesion.... are you threatened by the muslims? jeez, it's just irrational hooligans who use religion as a guise for their attempts at ethnic cleansing and i am pretty sure that they are a minority. My tuppence! Posted by AfroCynic| 02.11.2006 10:16

kvin33  Villager

# 7 I congratulate the Caliphate on an orderly and peaceful transfer of power albeit under unfortunate circumstances. All Nigerians should be grateful a potentially destabilizing power tussle did not ensue up North. It looks like this Col Abubakar is it, we should all hope he will be a force for peace, fairness and justice in Nigeria. Posted by kvin33| 02.11.2006 10:16

Auspicious  Villager

# 8 =kvin33;136989>I congratulate the Caliphate on an orderly and peaceful transfer of power albeit under unfortunate circumstances. All Nigerians should be grateful a potentially destabilizing power tussle did not ensue up North. It looks like this Col Abubakar is it, we should all hope he will be a force for peace, fairness and justice in Nigeria. Amen! Kev, big-up to you o'jare. You are one of the few consistently positive people on this forum. Thanks for being such an example to others. Oseun jare! Auspicious. Posted by Auspicious| 02.11.2006 11:15

philipikita  Villager

# 9 Oghre said: "Why do you think the north hates census and do everything to tamper with it always?" No. I don't think it is right to create a North-South war out of this very issue. I think the issue is of number of muslims, who are spread all over Nigeria's North and West. But there are a lot of christians too in the north...But which north are you talking about? where does your north begin sef. From Benue? 9 in 10 Benue people will "curse" you if you call them "northerners", same in plateau...you see? Lots of people south of Kaduna city (but still in kaduna State) would say the same thing! Please be patient with statistics quoted by foreign media. These statistics are benchmarked from the 1988 census which was done by Nigerians, not foreigners. the estimates are derived from annual demographic statistics of UN agencies, on which even the National Population Commission depends to get annual demographics. The NPC does not have the capacity to extrapolate. So, donot blame estimates by these foreigners, our own NPC and Bureau of statistics cannot produce any! Our governments quote and use some of the statistics when it suits "them", but reject most of these stats because they are clear evidence of government failure. Posted by philipikita| 02.11.2006 11:20

Nkire  Villager

# 10 Although the number could be an exaggeration, don't forget that Nigerian Muslims are not just from the North. Remember that the West is a mixture of the three Nigerian religions, i.e Christianity, Muslim and Africanism. Someitmes we forget the Africanists when we discuss religion in Nigeria. Although I am not a practitioner of Africanism, who knows, it might be our savior in the long run given the track record of Christianity and Islam thus far. Oh! btw, here is hoping that the new Sultan will speak out against the genocide in Darfur region of Sudan, after all, many Hausas and Fulani's originated from the region. So far our Muslim brothers in Nigeria have been silent on the racist genocidal war for fear of not offending the Arab "Gods". Bye Posted by Nkire| 02.11.2006 11:58

---

The conversation continues in our forum. Click here to read all comments

---