Jokolo spoke on the Hausa Service of the Voice of America monitored in Kaduna on Friday in reaction to the judgement of the Court of Appeal sitting in Kaduna which last Wednesday ordered the Kebbi State High Court to retry the matter of the former emir’s deposition.
The appellate court in its judgement said the lower court had the jurisdiction to hear the case. The court also ordered that the case should be assigned to another judge at the lower court and asked the Kebbi State Government to pay a fine of N30,000.
Jokolo, who described Bashar as a pretender and an impostor, said his successor was a beneficiary of an illegal act of the former Kebbi State Government under the immediate past governor, Alhaji Adamu Aliero.
He ruled out an out-of-court settlement of the matter, stressing that only Bashar’s abdication could settle the matter.
He said that he would never forgive those who conspired to deny him the throne, insisting that he would continue to fight legally until he was restored because he was unjustly removed from office.
Jokolo also said that he remained the Emir of Gwandu because according to him, Sheikh Abdullahi Gwandu, the first Emir of Gwandu, said that an emir could only be deposed “if he goes out of Islam.”
The former emir expressed hope in the judiciary which had ordered the retrial of his case and recalled how three years ago, the Kebbi State Government sent a commissioner of police to inform him of his suspension without handing him any formal letter, lamenting that that was the beginning of his plight in a country that claimed to be a democracy.
“We have seen genuine democracy in countries like the United States of America, in England and in India, where people’s rights are respected. What happened to me was unjust and I will never forgive that,” he said.
Jokolo, who was deposed by the Kebbi State Government in 2005, had gone to court to challenge his deposition, praying the court to quash his removal because it breached procedure as he didn’t commit any offence to warrant such a punishment.
He had also argued that the appointment of Bashar as his successor was null and void.
The Kebbi State Government had in turn argued that the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the case, adding that the deposed emir joined people who were not party to the deposition in the suit.
In addition, the government argued that the former emir did not give it the required one month before filing the suit. It was on this basis that the trial court dismissed the case.
Dissatisfied with the judgement of the lower court, Jokolo took the matter to the Appeal Court which ruled that the high court had jurisdiction to try the case.