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Driver to the late Sultan Muhammadu Maccido for 24 years has spoken about the last moments of the revered monarch and spiritual leader had with him.
Driver to the late Sultan Muhammadu Maccido for 24 years has spoken about the last moments of the revered monarch and spiritual leader had with him. Ahmadu Abubakar Abdulraham who drove the Sultan to the airport that fateful Sunday morning said before his boss boarded the ill-fated ADC flight, he greeted him in a most strange way, suggesting that he had a strange feeling of the imminent disaster.
According to the Sarikin Musulumi, the sultan did not behave in an unusual way all the while they drove from the venue of the education summit until they got to the airport and he was about to board the plane.
I drove him to the airport on Friday where he took an ADC flight to Abuja. I then had to drive his official car to Abuja. On Sunday, I drove him to the airport again. He didn't speak much while we were going to the airport, but he looked at me as he was going to board the flight and said,until we meet in Sokoto, and I hope we meet well.
'The driver said he was startled by the sultan's words. 'I then said to him, Your Eminence, how could you have made this statement? He just laughed and shook his head. He didn't say any other word."
With the sultan seated in the aircraft, the driver said he hit the road, hoping for a reunion with the master he had served for over two decades, long before he was turbaned as sultan.
'But somehow, I felt very uneasy so I decided to call his number. I felt a strong urge to speak with him. But when I called him, his number did not connect, so, I decided to call one of the aides with him, but that also was ringing and there was no reply. I then phoned Aliyu, Sultan Maccido's son who told me they had left the airport and that he heard the plane had one problem. So I turned back and headed for the airport."
He said at the airport, he was greeted by eerie silence.The atmosphere was such that I couldn't explain it. I felt a strange calm then. I now gathered that the plane which my boss joined had crashed. It was like a dream, then I started praying that nothing bad should happen to them."
He said driving the sultan was such a pleasure. 'He never treated you like a nobody, this was not because I started driving him before he became the sultan, no, that was his nature. He was such a humble person, we never had any problem. Never. If I live my life again, and the opportunity comes up, I would jump at it. Oh, driving the sultan was such an experience that words cannot describe. He was more of a friend than a boss."
He said the sultan did not care about cars that much, other than to get to his destination. 'Even if you brought a starlet, he would enter.
He never had any special liking for any particular car. But for the exalted nature of his office, he wouldn't mind sitting beside you, his driver," the father of 14 from three wives said.