NIGERIAN SUPREME COUNCIL FOR ISLAMIC AFFAIRS
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It was another breaking news throbbing the media waves, furiously, last Sunday
morning (September 20, 2020), to announce the demise of another frontline
Nigerian Monarch.
The announcement was that of the obituary of the Emir of Zaria, Alhaji Shehu
Idris, who was famously known as Sarkin Zazzau.
The demise of His Royal Highness was a case of a falconer flying away and leaving
the falcons behind. He had been briefly ill and was taken to the 44 Army
Reference Hospital, in Kaduna, where he had the final breath with which he
departed the world without bidding his family aurevoir.
With the bewildering news of his demise from the media, the scroll of history was
forced to replace its phase with a new chapter that may soon become a reference
point in Nigeria’s 21st century.
Life is a passage from the unknown to the unknown. The knowledge of whence
one emanated or whither one is bound is unknown generally in the presence of
death. But the testimony to the functions of this ephemeral passage that we call
life is a matter of two visas.
One visa is for an entry in it in the name of birth. The other is for an exit from it in the name of death.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the slipperiness of this passage knows neither
distinction between male and female genders just as it recognizes neither royalty
nor aristocracy.
We are all from Allah, and to Allah alone, we shall all return.
To the master womb in which the human palace called grave is based, all human
corpses are guests waiting to be received without any luggage.
When death comes to strike with its invisible icy hand, all the corpses that
become its victims are dumped in that permanent palace in the mega womb
beneath the earth albeit in different manners and in different styles.
Now, coming to the turn of a bridge building Royal father, without restraint, who
else can escape the dragnet of that mysterious agent of destiny called death?
With a heavy heart of sorrow and a cloudy mood of morning, the Nigerian
Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), under the leadership of its President
General and Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa‘ad Abubakar,
CFR, mni, hereby commiserates with the family and the Emirate of the late Sarkin
Zazzau, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Shehu Idris, as well as other Royal Fathers and
the entire Nigerian Muslim Ummah, praying the Almighty Allah to repose his soul
in perfect, eternal bliss and grant everybody the fortitude with which to cope with
any entailed agony. Inna lillah wa inna ilayhi raji‘un.
Femi Abbas,
Chairman, Media Committee, NSCIA
