SHEHU SANI ASKS SULTAN TO SPEARHEAD SEARCH FOR MISSING GIRLS

A Northern-based human rights activist and President of Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, Mallam Shehu Sani, has asked the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, to spearhead the search for the release of the abducted schoolgirls of Government Secondary School, Borno State by members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect.
Sani, in a letter to the Sultan of Sokoto and made available  in Kaduna on Tuesday, said in order to avoid the hovering drones, the Sultan had the moral burden to go beyond the mere pronouncements on the missing schoolgirls and act for the safe release of the girls.According to him, the abduction is not a matter for the Federal Government or President Goodluck Jonathan or the security forces alone to resolve but a national emergency which will affect the future of the country.
“You(Sultan) have a moral duty and a spiritual responsibility to be visibly and actively involved in seeking the resolution of this impasse happening within areas you have religious influence,” he said.
He noted that the Sultan, who is also the National President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs and one who has the listening ears of the Federal Government and respect of all religious clerics in the North, should facilitate the intervention of selected Islamic clerics to ask permission of the government to reach out to the insurgents for the release of the Chibok girls.
He added that the Islamic clerics that would intervene should also press on the Federal Government to consider the release of all persons currently in detention without trial arrested on suspicion of security breaches.
Sani said that as long as the Chibok girls continue to remain in captivity, it was not only the credibility of the Federal Government that was at stake but the moral perception of the nation and the relevance of the Sultanate and the overall image of Nigerian Muslims.