Former Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, is dead. He died at the age of 93. Secretary to the Sultanate Council, Alhaji Faruk Ladan, announced in a statement he issued in Hausa saying that the 18th Sultan of Sokoto, Dasuki, died on Monday night and that his funeral service would take place after Zuhr prayer in the afternoon of Tuesday at the Sultan Bello Mosque, Sokoto.
Although no further detail was provided by the statement, a source in Sokoto stated that Dasuki died in an Abuja hospital and would be brought to Sokoto Tuesday morning for burial.
The former Sultan, who was father of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki currently facing corruption charges, was deposed as Sultan in 1996 by the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha.
Born in Dogon Daji, Sokoto, the late Ibrahim Dasuki, son of late Sarkin Yamma and district head of Dogon Daji, Haliru Ibn Barau, started Qur’anic education in 1928. In 1931, he attended Dogon Daji Elementary School before proceeding to Sokoto Middle School in 1935. He finished his secondary education at Barewa College, Zaria, on a sponsorship from Sokoto Native Authority.
After finishing high school in 1943, he worked as a clerk in the treasury office of the Sokoto Native Authority as it was the tradition in Northern Nigeria for grant recipients to work for their sponsors, their respective Native Authorities. He however, in 1945, took up appointment with Gaskiya Corporation, a publishing house that published the Hausa daily called Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo.
In 1953, heeding the call by Ahmadu Bello for Northern Nigeria citizens to take up appointment in the regional civil service, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki joined the service as an executive officer. A year after he became private secretary to Ahmadu Bello. In 1957, he filled the position of regional executive council deputy secretary and a year later was sent to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as Nigeria’s pilgrimage officer.
Between 1960 and 1961, he worked in the Nigerian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan and was later brought back to Nigeria by Ahmadu Bello to work as resident in Jos, from where he moved on to become the permanent secretary in the regional Ministry of Local Government. Dasuki later switched to the Ministry of Commerce in 1965 as its permanent secretary. From 1965 until he was crowned Sultan, Dasuki concentrated largely on his business activities.
In 1966, he was chairman of the influential Northern Nigeria Produce Marketing Board, anorganisation involved with marketing the export of groundnut and in the distribution of seeds and chemicals. From 1967 to 1977, he was director and later chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). From 1979 to 1989, he was co-founder and chairman of the Nigerian branch of BCCI and was also a partner of Nessim Gaon in APROFIM, the firm involved in infrastructure investments, commodity production, purchasing and export activities.
After the death of Abubakar Siddique, the 17th Sultan of Sokoto on November 1, 1988 he became the 18th Sultan of Sokoto but was deposed in 1996 by General Sani Abacha through the military administrator of Sokoto State, Col. Yakubu Muazu, for reason among others such as causing enmity among the people and among the royal family. He was immediately flown to Yola and then taken to Jalingo where he was placed on exile.
(Vanguard )
