By Senator Iroegbu
Some deaths are mourned and steadily consigned to historical past. Others go away a void that point can’t fully fill, not merely as a result of of the circumstances surrounding them, however as a result of of the extraordinary lives they dropped at an finish.
Twenty years after the tragic ADC Airlines Flight 053 crash of October 29, 2006, the demise of His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, the nineteenth Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), stays a profound loss to Nigeria.
The ill-fated plane crashed shortly after departing Abuja for Sokoto, claiming 96 lives, together with the Sultan, his son, Senator Badamasi Maccido, his grandson, and a number of other different distinguished Nigerians.
The Sultan had travelled to Abuja to take part in a Presidential Forum on Education. Tragically, a journey undertaken within the service of nationwide growth turned his final.
Yet, 20 years later, what stays exceptional isn’t merely the magnitude of that tragedy, however the enduring relevance of the person whose life it prematurely ended.
I had the privilege, as a younger journalist, of documenting Sultan Maccido’s life and legacy. One notably memorable expertise was my unique interview with former President Shehu Shagari, at his residence in Sokoto in October 2008, two years after the tragedy.
Shagari’s testimony was particularly profound. He had taught Maccido at Sokoto Middle School within the Nineteen Forties, maintained a longstanding relationship with him, and subsequently appointed him Presidential Liaison Officer in Sokoto State throughout the Second Republic.
He additionally misplaced his personal son, Abdulrahman, in that unlucky crash.
Just a few individuals had been due to this fact higher positioned to discuss the Sultan’s character, management and humanity. What struck me most throughout our dialog was Shagari’s repeated emphasis on Maccido’s humility, endurance, tolerance and willingness to seek the advice of others earlier than taking selections.
“He hardly does anything without seeking or consulting those who know,” Shagari stated, stressing: “He does not rush or dictate things.”
According to him, those that misunderstood the Sultan’s disposition typically thought of him too quiet or excessively peaceable. But Shagari provided a exceptional remark: “He acts more than he speaks.”
That assertion has remained with me over time. It captures the essence of a pacesetter, who understood that affect doesn’t essentially require intimidation; that knowledge typically resides in restraint, and that real authority is earned by conduct relatively than demanded by place.
Born in 1926 in Dange, Sokoto, Muhammadu Maccido was a direct descendant of Sheikh Usman dan Fodio and the son of Sultan Abubakar III. Even his identify carried a touching story of hope and survival, having been given following the loss of earlier youngsters within the household.
His schooling, administrative coaching and publicity to governance in Nigeria and overseas ready him for many years of public service. He served in conventional administration and politics earlier than finally ascending the Sokoto throne in April 1996.
His journey to the throne was not with out challenges. Following his father’s demise in 1988, his succession was put aside underneath the army administration.
Rather than enable disappointment to eat him, he demonstrated the endurance and restraint that might subsequently outline his reign.
For ten years, he presided over one of Africa’s most influential conventional establishments throughout a very delicate interval in Nigeria’s political and non secular historical past.
The return to democratic rule, controversies surrounding the implementation of Sharia legislation, and recurring non secular tensions in elements of Northern Nigeria demanded management that might reconcile competing pursuits with out compromising deeply held convictions.
Admirably, Maccido rose to that accountability by dialogue, moderation and an unwavering dedication to peaceable coexistence.
He understood that non secular devotion ought to strengthen humanity relatively than diminish it, and that the accountability of non secular management prolonged past one’s fast non secular constituency.
Through all of it, the Sultan spoke the language of moderation. He labored with Christian leaders to maintain tempers from boiling over, figuring out that non secular conviction needn’t turn out to be hostility in the direction of others.
In 1998, he turned the primary Sultan of Sokoto to fulfill a Pope, when John Paul II visited Abuja. In 2003, elements of the North boycotted polio immunisation on the power of baseless rumours, and he lent his authority to the vaccine.
There is little doubt that his interventions in interfaith relations, public well being campaigns in opposition to polio and HIV/AIDS, and academic growth demonstrated his appreciation of conventional establishments as devices of nationwide progress.
It was, due to this fact, becoming that former President Olusegun Obasanjo described him as a person who lived and died for peace.
Beyond his public tasks, Maccido was remembered for his simplicity, generosity and accessibility. Those near him recall a person of easy tastes.
Accounts of his family feeding quite a few individuals every day mirrored a convention of hospitality that positioned communal welfare above private accumulation. His family fed scores of individuals each night, largely from grain despatched as items.
His life confirmed that management is measured by how authority is used within the service of the individuals, not by the gap between ruler and dominated. When he modified events on the eve of the Second Republic, he took care to return the cash he had obtained from the social gathering he left.
He revered individuals, in Shagari’s phrases, “whatever their profession”, and by no means let his place make him overbearing. If he had a fault, his outdated trainer stated, it was being accommodating “sometimes to a fault”.
But such qualities are notably instructive in the present day as Nigeria continues to grapple with terrorism, banditry, communal violence, non secular intolerance, political polarisation and the rising weaponisation of misinformation and disinformation.
So, 20 years after his demise, what does Sultan Maccido’s instance imply for Nigeria in the present day? We confront terrorism and communal violence, and banditry now stalks the very Sokoto countryside he liked.
Religious intolerance persists, and disinformation spreads quicker than ever. Our public life more and more rewards loudness over knowledge and confrontation over consensus.
Maccido proved {that a} chief may very well be influential with out being intimidating, and brave with out being confrontational. He confirmed that one may very well be deeply non secular with out being illiberal.
He knew that peace is greater than the absence of battle. It is the deliberate cultivation of justice, belief and mutual respect.
Regrettably, even Sokoto and its surrounding communities, which as soon as benefited from the Sultan’s stabilising affect, now confront safety challenges that threaten livelihoods, social cohesion and peaceable coexistence.
Therefore, at a time when public discourse more and more rewards confrontation over session, noise over knowledge and political expediency over ethical conviction, Sultan Maccido’s management gives a compelling various.
He demonstrated that one may very well be influential with out being overbearing, brave with out being confrontational, and deeply non secular with out changing into illiberal.
His demise additionally leaves a permanent lesson about institutional accountability. The ADC tragedy reminds us that honouring departed leaders should prolong past commemorative ceremonies to making sure that preventable disasters don’t recur.
Aviation security, regulatory accountability and the safety of human life should stay enduring nationwide obligations.
This, due to this fact, offers a second lesson, because it considerations how he died.
For years, many of us lamented that Nigeria honours its useless with out studying from their deaths. The Accident Investigation Bureau finally printed its findings: the crew took off into recognized adversarial climate and didn’t get better from wind shear.
The Bureau referred to as for higher crew coaching and windshear alert methods at our airports, and reforms adopted. Yet a report is just pretty much as good because the vigilance that follows it.
We can’t honour our departed heroes by ceremonies alone whereas neglecting the teachings of how we misplaced them. Shagari’s personal counsel was plain: we must always not put all our eggs in a single basket.
Fortunately, His Eminence Sultan Muhammad Sa’advert Abubakar III, who succeeded him, has carried ahead his legacy by interfaith dialogue and nationwide unity efforts.
The Sultan Muhammadu Maccido (*20*) was established to protect his beliefs. That work issues. But the truest memorial is whether or not these of us who stay select his means.
That means listening, consulting and respecting the atypical individual. It means holding religion with peace when division could be simpler.
For the Maccido household, this twentieth anniversary is undoubtedly a second of profound remembrance, but additionally one of respectable satisfaction.
Their beloved father, grandfather and patriarch bequeathed one thing way more enduring than titles, wealth or political affect: a very good identify, an honourable fame and a lifetime of service to humanity.
As I mirror on my encounter with President Shagari and the testimonies of those that knew the late Sultan intimately, one lesson stays unmistakable: historical past in the end judges leaders not by the ability they wielded, however by the lives they touched, the conflicts they prevented and the values they left behind.
Twenty years after his passing, Sultan Muhammadu Maccido stays related as a result of the virtues he embodied are exactly these Nigeria desperately wants in the present day.
He might need out of the blue vacated his throne twenty years in the past, however his place within the ethical historical past of our nation stays completely occupied.
May Almighty Allah forgive his shortcomings, grant him Al-Jannatul Firdaus, consolation his household, and reward his contributions to Nigeria, Islam, peace, and humanity.
Twenty years on, the Man of Peace remains to be instructing us.
Ameen.
*Senator Iroegbu is a journalist and a safety and geopolitics analyst. He is Editor-in-Chief of Global Sentinel and Convener of the Geopolitics Series.
