By Senator Iroegbu
Some deaths are mourned and regularly consigned to historical past. Others depart a void that point can not 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 improvement turned his final.
Yet, 20 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 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, 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 mentioned, 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 commentary: “He acts more than he speaks.”
That assertion has remained with me over time. It captures the essence of a frontrunner, who understood that affect doesn’t essentially require intimidation; that knowledge typically resides in restraint, and that real authority is earned by way of conduct fairly than demanded by way 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 youngsters 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 demise in 1988, his succession was put aside underneath the army administration.
Rather than permit 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 spiritual historical past.
The return to democratic rule, controversies surrounding the implementation of Sharia legislation, and recurring spiritual tensions in components of Northern Nigeria demanded management that might reconcile competing pursuits with out compromising deeply held convictions.
Admirably, Maccido rose to that duty by way of dialogue, moderation and an unwavering dedication to peaceable coexistence.
He understood that spiritual devotion ought to strengthen humanity fairly than diminish it, and that the duty of religious management prolonged past one’s quick spiritual 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 spiritual conviction needn’t develop into hostility in the direction of others.
In 1998, he turned the primary Sultan of Sokoto to satisfy a Pope, when John Paul II visited Abuja. In 2003, components of the North boycotted polio immunisation on the energy 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 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 duties, 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 each 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 obtained from the occasion 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 trainer mentioned, it was being accommodating “sometimes to a fault”.
But such qualities are significantly instructive right now as Nigeria continues to grapple with terrorism, banditry, communal violence, spiritual 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 now? 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 might be influential with out being intimidating, and brave with out being confrontational. He confirmed that one might be deeply spiritual 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 provides a compelling various.
He demonstrated that one might be influential with out being overbearing, brave with out being confrontational, and deeply spiritual with out turning into illiberal.
His demise additionally leaves a permanent lesson about institutional duty. 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, supplies a second lesson, because it issues 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 printed its findings: the crew took off into recognized antagonistic climate and didn’t get better from wind shear.
The Bureau known as for higher crew coaching and windshear alert programs at our airports, and reforms adopted. Yet a report is simply pretty much as good because the vigilance that follows it.
We can not honour our departed heroes by way 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 way 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 approach.
That means listening, consulting and respecting the peculiar particular person. It means protecting religion with peace when division could be simpler.
For the Maccido household, this twentieth anniversary is undoubtedly a second of profound remembrance, but in addition one of professional pleasure.
Their beloved father, grandfather and patriarch bequeathed one thing much more enduring than titles, wealth or political affect: title, an honourable status and a lifetime of service to humanity.
As I replicate 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 now.
He may 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 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.
