By Senator Iroegbu
Some deaths are mourned and regularly consigned to historical past. Others depart 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 delivered to an finish.
Twenty years after the tragic ADC Airlines Flight 053 crash of October 29, 2006, the dying 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 several 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 improvement grew to become his final.
Yet, twenty years later, what stays exceptional is just not 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 significantly 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 through the Second Republic.
He additionally misplaced his personal son, Abdulrahman, in that unlucky crash.
A number of 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, persistence, tolerance and willingness to seek the advice of others earlier than taking choices.
“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 generally thought-about him too quiet or excessively peaceable. But Shagari supplied a exceptional remark: “He acts more than he speaks.”
That assertion has remained with me through the years. 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 means of conduct relatively than demanded by means of 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 title carried a touching story of hope and survival, having been given following the loss of earlier kids within the household.
His training, 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 ultimately ascending the Sokoto throne in April 1996.
His journey to the throne was not with out challenges. Following his father’s dying in 1988, his succession was put aside underneath the army administration.
Rather than enable disappointment to devour him, he demonstrated the persistence 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 spiritual historical past.
The return to democratic rule, controversies surrounding the implementation of Sharia regulation, 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 duty by means of 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 duty of non secular management prolonged past one’s speedy 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, understanding that non secular conviction needn’t change into hostility in direction of others.
In 1998, he grew to become 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 question that his interventions in interfaith relations, public well being campaigns towards polio and HIV/AIDS, and academic improvement 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 obligations, 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 day by day mirrored a practice 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 acquired from the get together 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 previous instructor stated, it was being accommodating “sometimes to a fault”.
But such qualities are significantly instructive right this moment 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 right this moment? We confront terrorism and communal violence, and banditry now stalks the very Sokoto countryside he cherished.
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 affords 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 turning into illiberal.
His dying additionally leaves a permanent lesson about institutional duty. The ADC tragedy reminds us that honouring departed leaders should lengthen 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, supplies a second lesson, because it considerations how he died.
For years, many of us lamented that Nigeria honours its lifeless with out studying from their deaths. The Accident Investigation Bureau ultimately revealed its findings: the crew took off into identified antagonistic climate and did not recuperate from wind shear.
The Bureau known as for higher crew coaching and windshear alert methods at our airports, and reforms adopted. Yet a report is barely nearly as good because the vigilance that follows it.
We can’t honour our departed heroes by means of 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 means of 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 peculiar particular person. It means conserving religion with peace when division can be simpler.
For the Maccido household, this twentieth anniversary is undoubtedly a second of profound remembrance, but additionally one of authentic delight.
Their beloved father, grandfather and patriarch bequeathed one thing much more enduring than titles, wealth or political affect: an excellent title, an honourable repute 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 finally 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 right this moment.
He might need all of a sudden 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 continues to be educating 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.
