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Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, Former Sultan of Sokoto has died at the age of 93. The Sultan who was deposed in 1996 by then Head of State, General Sani Abacha was also the father of former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki who is currently in prison custody on corruption allegations.

Ibrahim Dasuki, the 18th Sultan of Sokoto was the first Sultan from the Buhari line of the house of Usman Dan Fodio. Before he became Sultan, he held the title of Baraden Sokoto.

In 1953, Ibrahim Dasuki took up an appointment in the Northern regional civil service and became private secretary to Sir Ahmadu Bello a year later. In 1958, he was sent to Jeddah as Nigeria’s pilgrimage officer. He worked in the Nigerian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan between 1960 and 1961 until he was brought back by Ahmadu Bello to work in the regional Ministry of Local Government where he became permanent secretary and later held the same position in the Ministry of Commerce in 1965.

From 1966 to 1977, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki was the Director and later Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Between 1979 and 1989, he co-founded and chaired the Nigerian branch of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

When Alhaji Siddiq Abubakar III, the 17th Sultan  of Sokoto died in November, 1988, Ibrahim Dasuki was among the candidates being considered to ascend the throne. On December 6, 1988,  Dasuki was announced as the 18th Sultan of Sokoto.

In 1966, the world was shocked at the most dramatic and unexpected deposition of the king by the then Military Governor of Sokoto State, Col. Yakubu Muazu. Muazu was said to have acted on the orders of the then Nigerian Military Head of State, General Sani Abacha.

Indeed, before the unprecedented deposition of the Sultan was announced, Dasuki had already been bundled into a small airplane and flown out of Sokoto. He subsequently spent years in exile in Adamawa State on the orders of the Federal Military Government.

Dasuki’s dethronement also meant that he was banished from Sokoto. Indeed, he never lived in the city of Sokoto again even after the death of General Abacha. The deposed Sultan spent the remaining part of his life in his Kaduna home.

Significantly, his son, Col. Sambo Dasuki has been in detention for several months and is facing allegations of corruption by the Federal Government. It was not clear at the time of this report if Sambo Dasuki would be released to attend his father’s burial.