Nigeria, Nov. 2 -- When little Sa'ad, the prince who would become Sultan Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar III, was born on Friday, 24 August 1956, to Sultan Siddiq Abubakar III and Hajiya Fadimatu Binta Abubakar, neither his father, who was 53, nor his mother nor anyone in the Sultanate could have known what Allah had written for him. No one could have foreseen that he would become a military officer, serve across Nigeria and beyond, and return decades later as the twentieth Sultan of Sokoto. As he marks twenty years on the throne, the course of that journey can be seen more clearly. The throne was not the visible destination of his childhood. That knowledge belonged to Allah alone.

If any of Sultan Abubakar III's sons appeared close to the thro...