Sada Abubakar

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Muhammadu Sa'adu Abubakar (born 1953) is the 20th Sultan of Sokoto, from November 02, 2006, the titular ruler of Sokoto in northern Nigeria, and the head of the Nigerian National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. As Sultan of Sokoto, he is considered the spiritual leader of Nigeria's 70 million Muslims, roughly 50 percent of the nation's population^[1]. On November 02, 2006, Sa'adu Abubakar succeeded his brother, Maccido, who was killed in the crash of ADC Airlines Flight 53^[2], from Abuja to Sokoto^[3] along with several top Sokoto State officials, his son, a Nigerian senator and a grandson.

Sa'adu Abubakar is a younger son of the 17th Sultan, Siddiq Abu Bakar dan Usuman, who held the Sultanate for over fifty years.^[4] The 53yr. old, Army Colonel,^[5] Muhammed Sa'adu Abubakar was on Thursday, November 2, 2006, turbaned the 20th Sultan of Sokoto and spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslim population. Abubakar, a younger brother of the late Sultan Mohammadu Maccido, son of Abubakar Sadiq III, began his military career in 1975 and was commissioned a second lieutenant two years later. Since then he has served in the elite Armoured Corps. He has done extensive military training overseas including in India, Canada and headed a presidential security unit of the Armoured Corps that guarded then military ruler General Ibrahim Babangida in late 1980s. He commanded a battalion of African peacekeepers in Chad during the early 1980s as part of the Organisation of African Unity's force and was military liaison officer for the West African regional body Ecowas in the mid 1990s.^[6]Col Abubakar, has also served with West Africa's peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone.^[7] The new Sultan was, until this morning, Nigeria's military attache to Pakistan. ^[8]