6 November 2006
column
Lagos — Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, the 19th Sultan of Sokoto, who died on October 29, along with 95 other passengers in the ADC flight 053 that crashed near Abuja enroute to Sokoto, could well be described as a man of destiny.
His life and death may well have captured the very essence of his Islamic belief that both power and human life itself were of God and from God which He gave, withheld or took to whoever He wished, whenever it pleased Him to do so.
The first son of the late Sultan Abubakar Saddiq II, Maccido was groomed and destined to succeed his father who over-saw the rump of the 200-year-old caliphate founded in 1804 by their great-grand-father, Shehu Uthman Danfodio.
However, when Sultan Saddiq Abubakar passed on in 1988 after 50 years in the saddle as spiritual head of the Muslim Ummah in the country, fate was to play a cruel joke on Maccido.
Against the run of play, after having overwhelmingly been endorsed by the caliphate's 11 kingmakers, Maccido was by-passed by the military government of former President Ibrahim Babangida, and his cousin Ibrahim Dasuki installed in his (Maccido's) stead.
It was a decision that elicited popular and wide-spread anger of Muslims in Sokoto State leading to riots that needed the army and other security operatives to calm down matters.
In the end Sokoto was almost set ablaze but Ibrahim Dasuki was installed Sultan.
But it appeared that in the face of destiny, fate was only a temporary agent. For, in 1996, the same military that installed Ibrahim Dasuki not only removed him but the former Sultan was banished and has not set foot on Sokoto city since then. Subsequently, Maccido, the aggrieved and rejected heir apparent was again remounted to fill the throne of his fore-fathers.
It all appeared like the will of God taking precedence over that of man. And watched and cheered by over 60,000 people from far and near, Alhaji Ibrahim Muhammadu Maccido was installed as the 19th Sultan of Sokoto, at nearly 70 years of age, almost when no-one gave him any chance to realize his life's ambition.
So was it that, the man who had been described as a great warrior for peace in a multi-cultural Nigeria ascended the saddle for 10 years. Until, again , destiny beckoned.
While he was on yet another journey to improve the welfare of his people through popular education in Abuja on the Saturday of October 28, he boarded the flight that was to take him and other Nigerians home to Sokoto only to meet his death.
It is a testimony to how much Sultan Maccido was loved by wide spectrum of Nigerians and beyond that as in life, his death and burial witnessed a tumultuous crowd of wailing and anguished mourners who thronged the palace to witness his burial, possibly more than the 60,000 who reportedly witnessed his installation in 1996.
Speaking of his life and tragic death, President Obasanjo described Sultan Maccido as a leader who lived, worked and died for the peace of the country. "He lived for peace, he worked for peace, he in fact died for peace", a visibly shaken Obasanjo had said.
"He worked and laboured for unity, understanding and cooperation of the two major religions in this country", the President said soberly. The President recalled the late Sultan's noble role in the nation's fight against HIV/AIDS pandemic and the controversy over the immunization programme of government against polio that was being opposed by religious fundamentalists in parts of the North.
Beyond his national duties, Sultan Maccido was also known to be a man of private peaceful existence. After his shabby treatment of being by - based in 1988 for his cousin, Maccido was gracious to his former foes when he regained the throne in 1996.
Fellow royal fathers, the masses and those in authority could count him as their friend and confidant-a role he relished to play and demonstrated in the early, trying years of the fourth republic when religious polarization of the country threatened unity with the introduction of Sharia code in several Northern states.
The subsequent fall-out of riots and sectarian violence which the Sharia incident precipitated distressed the Sultain so much that he was forced to proclaim that the riots were the handiwork of unbelievers "who did not wish the country well' and not the work of true Muslims or Christians.
Even when the Sultan made proclamations that tended, as it did in his call for break in ties with Israel, at the height of the Intifada in 2002 or his advice against Nigeria staging the Miss World pageant, all in 2002, the calls were made in good faith to prevent provocation and incipient violence from those who have other axe to grind.
Maccido may go down in history as one of the commanders of the Muslim faithful to have extensively visited largely Christian communities in the South in his avid desire to promote religious harmony.
"Let everyone be an ambassador of one Nigeria. Preach peace wherever you go and whatever you talk include peace. Only by then can we achieve what we want", he told his audience in Owerri, Imo State, in 2002 at the height of the religious riots ravaging the nation.
As the spiritual head of the Muslims in Nigeria, Maccido embodied the serene gravitas and quiet authority that be-fitted his position as Sultan.
His times were periods of great transition both for his Muslim subjects as well as the rest of Nigeria.
While his earlier predecessors may have relied on the immutable dictates and authority of the Koran for their power, influence and followership, Maccido reigned when the nation of a monolithic Islamic North came under challenge by elements who looked on other totems as sources of inspiration and cultural pride. For this he had to deploy the considerable diplomatic skills he acquired from Islamic and Western education.
He bought into progressive ideas without in any way compromising his religious beliefs and aristocratic heritage.
For this many will miss this noble warrior of peace.
The vacuum he left may be hard to fill but fortunately there is no shortage of equally noble minds in the House of Danfodio who will pick up from where Maccido tragically left off.
While we commiserate with all the families who lost their loved ones in that ill-fated air mishap, we must urge that the new Sultan should borrow a leaf from the late Maccido who kept the lid on the dormant volcano of religious fundamentalism.
The volcano of religious - cum-ethnic riots is only smoldering and needs to be diplomatically handled by the new Sultan, Maccido's successor, Sultan Mohammed Sa'ad Abubakar.
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