Nigerian leaders continue to die in the skies. Recently it was top military officers. Now, it is the Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Muhammadu Maccido, his senator son, and the son of former president Shehu Shagari. Is this a wake up call? Could it be negligence or conspiracy? Questions trail the most devastating crash of all.
Emergency workers are seen at the crash site of an ADC Airlines plane in Abuja, October 29, 2006. The Nigerian passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff from the capital Abuja, killing 99 people including the Sultan of Sokoto. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)
See the crash in Pictures [Courtesy: BBC]
An ADC plane carrying 104 people, including the the sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Maccido, the spiritual leader of Sunni Muslims in Nigeria, crashed in a storm Sunday after taking off from the airport in Abuja. Most of those on board were feared dead. This is the third passenger jet crash in Nigeria in less than a year.
The dead included the Sultan of Sokoto and President General of Nigeria's Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido; Sokoto State Deputy Governor, Alhaji Garba Mohammed; two Senators, Sule Yari Gandi and Badamasi Maccido, who was also the Sultan's son and another grandson and four children of the same parents, with surname as Abdurahaman.
The others included a Manager in Equitorial Trust Bank in Sokoto State, Mr. O.H. Irabor, a son of Second Republic President Shehu Shagari, Abdulrahman; and a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Lawal M.A.
For Senator Gandi's family, it was even a tragedy of unbelievable proportions: his mother, his wife and three children were on board and died with him.
Three daughters of Kogi State Governor, Ibrahim Idris, survived
Sultan Maccido is a respected traditional ruler, whose appointment was not without controversy. Muhammadu Maccido was believed to have been the choice of the traditional kingmakers of Sokoto, but was prevented from taking the position by former dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, who instead of respecting the wishes of the Sokoto kingmakers, appointed his business friend, Ibrahim Dasuki, as the sultan in 1988.
It was only when former military ruler Sani Abacha removed Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki that Maccido took finally assumed the throne.
Muhammadu Maccido, obviously not a friend of Babangida, is, however, respected by most Nigerians. His reign has been largely peaceful and most of the scandals that followed Sultan Dasuki were calmed on his ascension, such that a spokesman for President Obasanjo spoke of the country's deep shock and sadness at Maccido's death.
Debris from the shattered plane, body parts and personal belongings of passengers were strewn over a wooded area the size of a soccer field where the plane went down, about two miles from the end of the runway at the airport in the capital of the oil-rich West African nation.
Smoke rose from the plane's mangled and smoldering fuselage as rescue workers pulled out burned corpses. About 50 bodies were gathered in a corner of the site. The tail of the plane was hanging from a tree.
Sam Adurogboye, an Aviation Ministry spokesman, said the 23-year-old Boeing 737-2B7 crashed just one minute after takeoff. He said the cause of the crash was unknown. But witnesses said it was raining around the time the aircraft took off. Rains subsided later, but skies remained overcast. Adurogboye said: "Obviously the rest are feared dead," he said.
Emergency workers recovered the last of the bodies about six hours after the crash.
The aircraft, owned by the private Nigerian airline Aviation Development Co., was headed to Sokoto, about 500 miles northwest of Abuja. In a radio announcement, the Sokoto state government said the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Maccido, died in the crash. Maccido was the head of the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, which determines when Muslim fasts should begin and end and decides policy issues for Nigeria's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims.
Mustapha Shehu, spokesman for the Sokoto state government, said the sultan's son, Badamasi Maccido, a senator, also was on the flight, along with Abdulrahman Shehu Shagari, son of former Nigerian President Shehu Shagari, who was in office between 1979 and 1983.
At the airport in Abuja, security officials tried to contain a crush of people seeking information about friends or family aboard the plane.
As usual, President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered an immediate investigation into the cause of the crash, his spokeswoman Remi Oyo said in a statement. Oyo said Obasanjo was "deeply and profoundly shocked and saddened ... he offers condolences for all Nigerians, especially family, friends and associates of those who may have been on board."
The Nigerian airline ADC last suffered a crash in November 1996, when one of its jets plunged into a lagoon outside Nigeria's main city, Lagos, killing all 143 aboard. Author of Political Economy in Nigeria, Professor Claude Ake perished in that crash. It was thought to be the most devastating crash then, but it pales in comparison to the recent disasters in Nigeria's airspace.
Last year, two planes flying domestic routes crashed within seven weeks of each other, killing 224 people.
Nigeria's air industry is notoriously unsafe. On Oct. 22, 2005, a Boeing 737-200 plane belonging to Bellview airlines crashed soon after takeoff from the country's main city of Lagos, killing all 117 people aboard. On Dec. 10, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 plane operated by Sosoliso Airlines crashed while approaching the oil city of Port Harcourt, killing 107 people, most of them schoolchildren going home for Christmas.
Earlier this month, authorities released a report blaming the Sosoliso crash on bad weather and pilot error. The investigation of the Bellview crash is still continuing.
After last year's air crashes, Obasanjo vowed to overhaul Nigeria's airline industry, blaming some of the industry's problems on corruption. Airlines were subjected to checks for air-worthiness and some planes were grounded.
