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Sultan Mohammadu was the head of Sokoto caliphate and president of Nigeria's influential Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). |
ABUJA — Sultan Mohammadu Maccido, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, and his son were among 100 people killed Sunday, October 29, in a commercial airliner crash.
"The Sultan of Sokoto was among the dead," Mustapha Sheu, Sokoto State government spokesman, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
He said Sultan Mohammadu was accompanied by his son, a local MP, and three other officials who all died in the crash.
A passenger plane of the private Nigerian airline ADC crashed earlier Sunday and burst into flames at the outskirts of Abuja.
The plane took off from Lagos en route to Sokoto with around 110 passengers and crew.
After dropping some passengers in Abuja, it took off for Sokoto. A few moments after taking off, the plane lost control and crashed.
At least four people survived the accident, according to reports.
Nigeria's deadly skies was afflicted with some of the worst plane crashes during the past year.
In December, a Sosoliso commercial jet crashed on landing in the oil city of Port Harcourt, killing all the 117 people on board.
Two months earlier, a Bellview commercial plane crashed in Lisa village, near Lagos, killing more than 100 people on board.
Tragedy
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Emergency and Red Cross workers are seen at the crash site. (Reuters)
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Sultan Mohammadu was the head of Sokoto caliphate and president of Nigeria's influential Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), the umbrella body for Nigerian Muslims.
The council's secretary-general Lateef Adegbite described his death as a tragedy.
"We are devastated by the tragic plane crash. It has left the Muslim faithful without leadership," he said.
"The sultan was a genuine, fearless and committed leader."
In 2004, Nigerian Muslims marked the 200th anniversary of the creation of Sokoto Caliphate, which had unified Muslim-populated areas in the north under a central Islamic authority in 1804.
Sokoto occupies a unique place in the history of Nigeria.
Legendary Islamic scholar Uthman Dan Fodio began his efforts to renew Islamic thoughts and unify Hausa-speaking areas in the north under a central authority seated in Sokoto in 1804.
Fodio sought to establish a political system based on the principles of universal justice in the Caliphate, which flourished until the British conquered it in 1903.
His "Sokoto Jihad" project established in the area new legal, administrative and educational institutions based on Muslim concepts, ideas and values.
The north became a religio-political community of its own and Islam became the framework with which the people conducted their day-to-day activities.
With the conquest and collapse of the Sokoto Caliphate by the British in 1902, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was created and fourteen provinces were carved out of the defunct caliphate.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria consists of thirty states at present.
In recent years, the twelve northern states in Nigeria have decided to adopt Shari`ah though the national constitution declares Nigeria as a secular state.
Nigeria’s recent census shows that Muslims make up 55 percent of the country’s 133 million population, Christians 40 percent and animists five percent. |
