The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Abubakar III, Sarkin Musulmi, Nigeria
(Life Patron)
Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III is the 20th Sultan of Sokoto, the titular ruler of Sokoto in northern Nigeria, the President General of Jama’atu Nasril Islam (Society for Support of Islam-JNI), and President General of the Nigeria National Supreme Council and Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. As Sultan of Sokoto, he is considered the spiritual leader of Nigeria’s seventy million Muslims, roughly fifty percent of the nation’s population. Sa’ad Abubakar succeeded his brother Muhammadu Maccido who died on ADC Airlines Flight 53, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Nnamdi Azikiwi international Airport. He is a 2007 recipient of the national honor, commander of the Order of the Federal Republic(CFR).
The Sultan attended Ward Primary School, Sokoto and Barewa College, Zaria before proceeding to the Nigeria Defense Academy, Kaduna in 1975 for the 18th Regular Combatant Course. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant on December 17, 1977 and posted to Nigeria Army Armored Corps.
Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III had attended various professional courses in Nigeria and abroad. His overseas military training took him to India and Canada. General Sa’ad Abubakar served in various positions as head of the presidential security unit of the Armoured Corps to General Ibrahim Babangida in late 1980s, Nigeria’s Defense Attaché to Pakistan, with concurrent of Africa Unity’s peacekeeping battalion in Chad during the early 1980s, Military liaison officer for the West African regional body Ecowas in the mid 1990s, commander of the tank battalion of the Ecowas peacekeeping force when it intervened in Serra Leone’s bloody civil war.
He retired from the Nigeria Army on the rank of Brigadier General in 2006 after 31years of meritorious services to the nation