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Nigerian Sultan dethroned

LAGOS: Nigeria's military rulers have dethroned the powerful spiritual leader of the country's Muslims, Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki, and could put him on trial for alleged financial offences, state radio reported on Sunday.

Dasuki, 72, was removed from office on Saturday as the Sultan of Sokoto in northwest Nigeria after he was arrested and flown to Adamawa state in northeast, local newspapers reported.

Official Rima Radio said a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been imposed on Sokoto to prevent any unrest.

Telephone calls to Sokoto on Sunday went unanswered.

Sokoto state military administrator Colonel Yakubu Muazu said Dasuki was removed for lack of respect for constitutional authority and found to have engaged in subversive activities against government.

"He stated that Dasuki might be appearing before the failed banks tribunal, adding that it will be embarrassing to government to arraign a personality of the Sultan before the tribunal," the radio reported.

Diplomats said Dasuki's fall was not unexpected as his relationship with military ruler General Sani Abacha is frosty.

His son, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki, who is in exile, was declared wanted for an alleged plot to topple Abacha last year for which many people including a former ruler were jailed.

In all eight reasons were given by Muazu for the removal of the sultan, including travelling without permission and misusing money sent by foreign donors for mosques and schools.

Dasuki is currently facing investigation by a tribunal looking into failed banks.

A millionaire businessman, he has been chairman or director of many companies. Two such firms are alleged to be owing the failed Alpha Merchant Bank 775 million naira ($9.2 million).

Shortly after a suit against the directors of the firms was filed by the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, the body charged with underwriting the banks, Dasuki's lawyers protested that he was no longer on the boards of the firms and his name should be struck off the defendant's list.

The tribunal rejected his protest and has fixed May 27 and 30 for hearing in the suit.

Scores of Nigerian bankers and directors of companies which failed to repay debts and have been blamed for causing the lending banks to collapse are in detention in Nigeria.

Some, including Alpha Merchant Bank executives, have already been convicted.

On Friday, Thisday newspaper reported that a document circulating in the capital Abuja alleged Dasuki had been behind Saudi Arabia's ban on Nigerian pilgrims entering the country.

Saudi authorities worried by a meningitis epidemic imposed the ban last week. When it was partially lifted on Wednesday it was too late to fly thousands of the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia before the Sunday deadline.

Dasuki, a banker as well as an Islamic scholar became Sultan of Sokoto in 1988 in a controversial appointment in which many analysts saw the hand of the previous military government.

Many local people protested that Muhammed Maccido, the son of the former sultan should have been appointed instead.

Around half of Nigeria's 100 million people are Muslims including Abacha.-Reuter