Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Nigeria Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims and chairman of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs — arguably the most influential single office in northern Nigeria.
Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar III was a career soldier, rising to brigadier general and serving as Nigeria's defence attaché in Pakistan, when his elder brother the Sultan died in a plane crash in 2006 and the kingmakers of Sokoto selected him.
The Sultan of Sokoto is the successor to the caliphate founded by Usman dan Fodio in 1804, and although the office has no constitutional power in the Nigerian federation, it carries the religious leadership of the country's Muslims — roughly half the population of the most populous country in Africa — and the chairmanship of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.
He has used it carefully. He co-chairs the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council with the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, and has spent years on the argument that violence carried out in Islam's name is a repudiation of it, at times in places where saying so was dangerous. He has pressed publicly on girls' education, on childhood immunisation at a point when vaccination campaigns in the north were being refused, and against the abuses that travel under the name of tradition.
The Sultan of Sokoto is the successor to the caliphate founded by Usman dan Fodio in 1804, and although the office has no constitutional power in the Nigerian federation, it carries the religious leadership of the country's Muslims — roughly half the population of the most populous country in Africa — and the chairmanship of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.
He has used it carefully. He co-chairs the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council with the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, and has spent years on the argument that violence carried out in Islam's name is a repudiation of it, at times in places where saying so was dangerous. He has pressed publicly on girls' education, on childhood immunisation at a point when vaccination campaigns in the north were being refused, and against the abuses that travel under the name of tradition.
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