Maitama Sule: An Eloquent Unifier Dies in Heat of National Strife
Buhari, Osinbajo, others mourn, Kano declares today work free
Yusuf Maitama Sule could well have been the cat with nine lives. Twice, first in 2013, then in 2016, he was speculated dead only for family and friends of the celebrated political orator from the core North-western part of the country to clarify that, though ripe in age, he was well and still kicking. Yesterday, however, in the faraway ancient city of Cairo in Egypt, he died. He was 88 years old. The nation mourns.
Given his age, his death ought to be celebrated having regard to his political accomplishments, three-time minister of the federal republic, a world class diplomat and a revered statesman. But the circumstances and timing of his demise are such that the nation received with shock the news of his passage.
Down with pneumonia and chest infection, the nation’s foremost hospital in his native Kano city could not treat him and he had to be ferried to Cairo for proper medicare. That speaks to the hopeless and unfortunate state of the nation’s health care system, which he spoke passionately about only a few months ago. He could not return home to continue with the moderating role he had allotted himself as the nation faced the most debilitating national strife in its history.
Threatened by a religious insurgency in the Northeast, separatist agitations in the South-east, militancy in the South-south, and a deafening clamour for the restructuring of the country in the South-west, Nigeria totters on the brink. One of the most influential voices from the North, urging restraint and accommodation was Sule, who located the basis of the national uprising as the absence of justice. At a conference of Northern leaders in Kano two years ago, he was strident in his call for equity and justice as the basis for peace in the country.
“The world can never be governed by force, fear and power. What governs is the mind and the weapon for conquering the mind is justice,” Sule told his audience consisting of the Northern elite and intelligentsia, contending forcefully that “justice should be given to everyone equally no matter their religion (and ethnicity). If you deserve justice, it must be given to you”.
He called on history in aid of his proposition and argued that the First Republic was relatively more stable and glorious because there was equal justice for all Nigerians, irrespective of their religion and ethnicity.
Asking Nigerians to reflect on the past as the way forward, he said: “It is necessary to visit the past so that we may know what we were before and compare it with what we are today so as to adjust to the present and plan for the future.
“Our past was glorious. Our founding fathers were excellent people. Not only in the North but in Nigeria as a whole. They were decent people who went into politics to serve but not to be served. To give but not to take.
“They had their differences. Some were Muslims and some were Christians from different cultural grounds but they were able to accommodate one another. They respected one another and cooperated with one another.”
Obviously embedded in his thought-provoking presentation, which received the traditional standing ovation that characterised his speeches everywhere, are the arguments for the review of the prevailing political and economic structures of the federation. Carefully avoiding the word “restructuring” that many Northern politicians and elite find offensive, Sule made the point that the current arrangement was crumbling and was in serious need of “reengineering” and “rebuilding”.
At other fora, the elder statesman took time to rebuke the use of religion and ethnicity as political tools to attain power, opposing them because they undermined the unity of the country.
“All religion preaches peace and love to everybody not just to people of your religion. There is no religion of God that says you should coerce people to join the religion. If we were to live the teachings of love as God wants us to, then there will be peace,” he told another gathering last year in Kano.
Born in Kano in 1929, Sule belonged to the generation of the founding fathers of Nigeria from the North, even when he was junior in line to the likes of the Sardauna Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Premier of the Northern Region, and Alhaji Aminu Kano, who was the leader of the opposing Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU). He came to national limelight as a member of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and was elected into the House of Representatives, becoming the Minister of Mines and Oil from 1959 to 1966.
He went into political hibernation after the military coup of January 1966 but resurfaced in 1976 as the Federal Commissioner of Public Complaints, appointed by his former student, Gen. Murtala Mohammed, who became Head of State in July 1975.
Upon the return of politics in 1978, he joined the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and aspired to bear its presidential flag in the 1979 general election but lost to Alhaji Shehu Shagari who eventually became the Second Republic president.
Sule was appointed Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in September 1979. At the UN, he was appointed the chairman of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid. He returned from there in 1983 to become Minister for National Guidance, a portfolio designed to assist the president in tackling corruption.
Enormously endowed with the gift of the gab, the late politician was known to have used his talent to mobilise Nigerians towards the path of unity and nationhood, taking care always to draw attention to the positives that tend to mold the different ethnic groups together, insisting that there was great advantage in Nigeria’s diversity.
“Everyone has a gift from God,” he once said about Nigerians, adding: “The Northerners are endowed by God with leadership qualities. The Yoruba man knows how to earn a living and has diplomatic qualities. The Igbo man is gifted in trade, commerce, and technological innovation. God so created us equally with purpose and different gifts.”
In the face of the ethnoreligious crisis and separatists agitations that are threatening to break Nigeria, the old man insisted on the unity of the country, saying in spite of the challenges, he was hopeful that the nation would emerge stronger.
On one of those occasions that he was brought out to share his experience to serve as an inspiration to the younger generations of Nigerians, he was at his oratorical best:
“I have a dream not only for the North but for the entire country, Nigeria.
“I have a dream that Nigeria will be truly united one day.
“I have a dream that Nigeria will have a buoyant and strong economy.
“I have a dream that Nigeria will have the political clout that will enable it to lead the rest of Africa and of blacks all over the world.
“I have a dream that Nigeria will come to regard one another as their brother’s keepers.
“I have a dream that Nigeria will take her proper place in the comity of nations and will be one of the leading nations of the world.”
Sule was 84 when he had that dream. He was a patriot and a nationalist till his last breath. No wonder, THISDAY Newspapers honoured him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the peace, unity, growth and development of Nigeria, his fatherland. He was unable to attend the awards ceremony due to his failing sight, but THISDAY was undaunted. Its Editorial Board, led by its Chairman/Editor-in-Chief, Nduka Obaigbena, flew to Kano to personally present the award to Sule. For members of the board, the two hours spent at his residence were an unforgettable experience, as he was at his eloquent best, his acuity and memory undiminished by age, and played the perfect host to the August visitors to his abode.
Sule had risen from humble beginnings to attain national reckoning as one of the longest serving ministers in the truncated First Republic and a favourite of then Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. The two shared a striking history, according to online medium Premium Times. While Balewa’s father was a servant of the Madaki of Bauchi, Sule’s father served the then powerful Kano kingmaker, Madaki Mahmudu. It was after his master’s father