Ten years’ special tribute: Tragedy of a lifetime
Last Saturday, October 29th was exactly ten years since the ADC plane crash at Abuja airport as it departed for Sokoto. In one fell swoop, Sokoto community lost dozens of illustrious citizens, including Sultan Muhammadu Maccido. For Sokoto, the 2006 plane crash was the third major such calamity in 33 years. In January 1973, a […]
Last Saturday, October 29th was exactly ten years since the ADC plane crash at Abuja airport as it departed for Sokoto. In one fell swoop, Sokoto community lost dozens of illustrious citizens, including Sultan Muhammadu Maccido. For Sokoto, the 2006 plane crash was the third major such calamity in 33 years. In January 1973, a Jordanian Airlines Boeing 707 plane conveying pilgrims from Mecca crashed at Kano airport. Most of the pilgrims were from the North Western State. They included my uncle Alhaji Sule Jega of the Ministry of Defence. In 1991, a Holdtrade Air plane also conveying Sokoto State pilgrims from Mecca crashed near Jeddah. Nearly 200 people, many of them well known to me, were lost in that plane.
The most prominent victim of the 2006 ADC plane crash was Sultan Muhammadu Maccido. I had known Sarkin Kudu, as he was called before he became Sultan, since 1968, when he was a Commissioner in the North Western State. He used to drive past our house in his old model Mercedes car some evenings. In 1978, during the transition to civil rule, Muhammadu Maccido became a political sensation when he simultaneously became the state chairman of both NPN and GNPP. What really happened was that he was the state GNPP chairman but in November 1978, NPN held its state congress at the Sokoto Cinema and nominated Alhaji Shehu Kangiwa as its governorship candidate. It then elected Sarkin Kudu, eldest son of the revered Sultan Sir Abubakar III, in absentia as its chairman. It took days before he finally appeared at an NPN function, thus ending the speculation. He was also the Presidential Liaison Officer [PLO] in Sokoto State under President Shehu Shagari.
I only became close to Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido when he became the Sultan in 1996. It was Magatakarda Babba Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir that took me close him. Sultan Maccido’s humility and simplicity were legendary. I got to know how simple he was when I interviewed him for an hour in 1996, only to discover that the tape recorder had not recorded a word. I was trembling with embarrassment when I was led back to him. Sultan Maccido however laughed and said, “Kasan karfen bature.” [You never know with Whiteman’s gadgets]. He granted me another interview.
Despite that mishap, Sultan Maccido included me in his 5-member delegation when he was invited to visit India in 1997. We visited many places in India and Indian officials asked many questions about Nigeria. Sultan Maccido was a quiet man, so he mandated me to speak at every turn. When we visited the tomb of a Mughal emperor in Jaipur, Sultan Maccido beckoned to me and whispered, “Do you know this man? How can we pray at the tomb of a man whose religious standing we don’t know?” I explained that we were there for tourism, not Medina-style ziyara.
During the Indian trip I also befriended Sallaman Sarkin Musulmi Alhaji Ibrahim Mohamed, who also died in the plane crash. Sallama was Sultan Maccido’s closest personal aide. He was a very jovial man who for many years afterwards called me “Jogba”, as one Indian official erroneously called me during the trip. Many people in Sokoto tried to exploit Sallama’s unlimited access to Sultan Maccido but he refused to handle any message that he knew could annoy the Sultan. For that reason, other palace courtiers nicknamed him ‘Biri baka taka wuta”, that is, a monkey is too smart to step on fire.
Another plane crash victim was Ciroman Dange Alhaji Umaru Babuga, who was Secretary of the Sultanate Council. I had known him since 1984, when he was a commissioner in the old Sokoto State. From around 2000-2006 when the issue of moon sighting became controversial, he called me every month when I was editor of New Nigerian to ensure that we published the right date of the Islamic lunar calendar.
We also lost Abdurrahman Shehu Shagari in that crash. I first knew him at the Yabo Secondary School in 1977 when I went to visit my cousin Hussaini. In 1979 to 1983 when his father was the president, Abdurrahman still visited our house in Sokoto several times a week. He had no airs at all and he regarded us as his closest friends. One day in 1981, he came straight to our house from Lagos. He said he told his father that he had secured admission to read for a diploma in tourism at ABU’s Kongo Campus but President Shehu Shagari said he should “go and ask your friends, Muhammadu Jega’s children” whether it was a good course.
Also lost in the crash was Alhaji Waisu Yaro Bodinga, Executive Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority. I first knew him in 1978 when he was secretary general of the Sokoto State Students Association, SOSSA. We spent two months together doing student vacation work at the Sokoto State Ministry of Establishments. Waisu was a “real guy” in those days; he sported a thick, well groomed Afro hair. He was also very gentle and did not like arguments, unlike most other students.
Yet another plane crash victim was Hajiya Aisha Abubakar, principal of the Federal Government Girls College, Gwandu. I had known her since 1976, when her father Alhaji Sani Kangiwa and his family lived at Junaidu Road, not far from my family house. A decade later my brother Abbas married her sister Hajiya Fati. Also in the plane was Hajiya Aisha’s bosom friend, Hajiya Amina Aliyu Kardi, principal of the Federal Government College, Tambuwal. I first saw Hajiya Amina in 1992 at the house of her father, Galadiman Katsina and district head of Malumfashi Justice Mamman Nasir. On that day she married our brother Alhaji Aliyu Kardi.
Another very big loss in that crash was Malam Abdullahi Bayero Bello. I first knew him around 1970 when he returned to Sokoto from Lagos to become the General Manager of the North Western State Trade Development Company, Tradev. It was Sokoto’s first modern supermarket. In Sokoto in those days, only Malam Bayero had more Afro hair than Waisu Yaro. We all marvelled as he drove around in his yellow Renault car. His junior brothers Hassan and Hussaini Bello were our very close friends. Bayero Bello later became an Executive Director at Leventis Group and from around 2000AD, he regularly called me on phone to discuss political and social issues, of which he was very passionate.
Also in the plane was Alhaji Garba Silame, who was the deputy to then Governor Attahiru Bafarawa. I often saw him playing badminton at the Civil Service Club. The then Sokoto State Commissioner for Education Dr. Sanusi Usman Junaidu was well known to me at the Usman Danfodio University. In that plane too was Malam Faruk Shamaki, at the time personal assistant to Governor Mohamed Adamu Aliero and a good friend of mine. There were two serving senators, Sule Yari Gandi and Badamasi Maccido on that plane, together with their wives and children. We also lost Ahmed Hanafi Sa’ad. His grandfather Ubandoma Sa’adu [district head of Birnin Kebbi] was a very close friend of my grandfather Magatakarda Abdullahi Kakale Jega since 1940s. Ahmed later married my niece, Jamila. May Allah have mercy on the souls of all of them plus the more than 100 other victims of that tragedy of a lifetime.