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Vice President, Kashim Shettima, on Friday visited the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar, and emphasised the need for peace for the development of the country.
Vice President Shettima said his visit to the Sultan’s palace was at the behest of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to convey Sallah greetings to him and the Sultanate Council.
He said: “Your Eminence, I’m here at the behest of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to specially come and Sokoto to convey Sallah greetings and best wishes to the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of the Ummah in Nigeria in this special time of the Eid Al-Adha festival.
“The Sultan of Sokoto is an institution, not only in Northern Nigeria, but in the West African sub-region in the Muslim world.”
Stressing the dialectical relationship between peace and development, Shettima said “There cannot be peace without development; there can never be development without peace.”
According to him, President Tinubu believes that “It is cheaper for him to maintain his relationship with Sarkin than to fight him.
“It is a force of nature. It is cheaper for him to maintain his relationship with the Sultanate.”
In his remarks, the Sultan pledged the support of the Sultanate Council for the administration of President Tinubu and for his policies.
“We support you 100% insha Allah. We give you our word at any time you reach out to us, or you don’t reach out to us, we support the government and we will do whatever it takes to maintain peace and stability in our state, in our country, Nigeria.”
The Sultan acknowledged the Vice President’s call for peace and stated that both the government and traditional councils would continue to tell each other about the importance of peace in the country.
“We need peace and while we need peace we have to also take active issues. Today is exactly a month since you were sworn in and you have done a lot within a month.
“I think it is something that we need to acknowledge. Some issues are so bad to some people but we must take decisions.
“If you don’t take decision, you cannot take any action at all. From decision taken, we will see the benefits later on.
“So, we need to conform with the normal standard of reaching out to everybody. Communication is important. We are here as your communicators. We discuss; we go and tell people the way things are.”
He said that the policies introduced by the government might bring hardship on the people but urged them to persevere as such policies would make life better in the future.
“Policies are important; some stringent policies are important for us to move forward, but I believe we must always take people along, so that everybody knows what we are doing and why we are doing it.
“At the end of it, people will say Alhamdullilahi, we suffered before, but now we are much better.”