AMIR IN IBADAN ON MSSN @ 60 INTRODUCTION In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All praise and gratitude are due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. May His choicest blessing be upon the gentle soul of the noblest of mankind, Muhammad Mustapha, his companions and those who continue to follow his foot step till a day when wealth and kin will not be of any benefit except he that comes with a submissive soul to the will of Allah. DIAMIOND JUBILEE ANNIVERSARY LECTURES Permit me to welcome everybody here seated to this blessed gathering. This is the first in the series of lectures/ symposia lined up to mark the diamond jubilee of our great and giant society. Others in the series include South-South zone in Port Harcourt, Rivers state on 21st- 22nd March, South East Zone Enugu, Enugu state 4th -5th April, North Central Zone, Minna Niger state, 18th -19th April, North West centre, Sokoto, Sokoto state 2nd -3rd May, North East centre, Bauchi, Bauchi state 18th -17th May. The grand finale will be holding at the National Women Development Centre, Abuja on the 24th of May 2014. We wish to use this medium to invite everybody to these lined up activities to mark the 60th anniversary of this noble and blessed society. The theme MSSN: Impacts, Problems and Prospects with the lecturers and chairmen of occasion were carefully selected to reflect the past and present generations of MSSN gladiators. This is because the present leadership of MSSN believes that these two generations needs to come together to jaw-jaw on our common legacy. THE BIRTH OF A NEW IDEA The greatest idea which has saved millions of the Muslim children from the oppression of the colonial masters as orchestrated by the Christian evangelists was conceived on 18th April, 1954. Muslim Students seeking western education in a hostile colonial and aggressive evangelical environment then prevalent in the west coast of Africa had to find a platform to discuss and find solution to their common problems and challenges. The idea which changed the history of Islam in Nigeria and influenced the Muslim thought in Africa and North America was eventually given birth to on the 30th of May, 1954 and was named Muslim Students’ Society. Permit me to say that MSS has not only transformed into MSSN today, it has metamorphosed from being a society into an ideology which has influenced the course of events in the most populous black nation. It has grown in leaps and bounds to be the largest organisation (religious or otherwise) not only in Nigeria but in Africa with millions as active members while some other millions are sympathisers. According to the first national president of this great society, Dr Abdul-Lateef Adegbite, CON “the establishment of the Muslim Students society of Nigeria is one of the greatest events In the Islamic history of Nigeria. It was a turning point for the Muslim Ummah. The advent of the society arrested an ugly and dangerous situation, halting the stratagem of the then Christian missionaries who are bent at using their institutions as centres of Christian evangelisation” . Before the advent of MSSN, Muslim parents were reluctant to send their children to school. Even fatwas were passed forbidding the Muslims from partaking in the western education because of the real fear that the missionary teachers would forcefully convert Muslim children from Islam to Christianity. Many who were heedless were indeed converted; a good number of prominent Nigerians especially from the south west who are now Christians were born Muslims. Christians had predicted confidently that once western Education took root in Nigeria, it will be a matter of time that Islam would be wiped out of the country! But Alhamdulillah, the formation of MSSN shattered this devilish prediction. Today, you have millions of Muslim students in all institution of learning, millions who have graduated through these institutions remain strong practising Muslims and are contributing their quota towards the development of Nigeria and the world at large. MSSN has not only built responsible human being but also it can be described as the mother of major Islamic organisations in Africa, Europe and North America. With all sense of humility, virtually every Islamic organisation in Nigeria is indebted to MSSN for its quality ideas and manpower. MSSN @ 60 Today we are commencing with the celebration of the founding fathers of MSS. We are celebrating our success in dawah. We are gathering to thank Allah for MSSN. We have come together to showcase our Islam. We are happy because Allah saved our Islam and our identity. Baba Aromasodun, baba Lateef Adegbite, Baba Sumola Laguda. We wish you could have been with us alive today to see the fruit of your good and sincere effort to save the future of the Muslim children. We were told you were twelve in number when you conceived this idea which today has influenced millions. You could have lived to see Muslim students going to school with all sense of dignity and pride. Even the use of niqab is not a barrier to pursuing the best of the profession in the university today. Our solace is in the fact that, on all the millions that have been influenced by your celestial initiative you will continue to get reward from their good deeds till eternity. To the present generation of MSSN, old and young, undergraduates and post-graduates, artisans and professionals, we are celebrating your sagacity, we salute your courage and doggedness for keeping the flag flying. We applaud your sacrifice and selflessness in sustaining our common heritage. To my sisters who are been brutalized and victimized for hijab, you are indeed heroes of hijab and the hope of the Ummah of Muhammad. At 60, Let us come out and celebrate this society that has done us nothing but good. Let us spread the good news that MSSN worth celebrating. MSSN is the hope of the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria. In the last 60 years of its existence, its greatest achievement is in anyone who after passing through the wall of formal education settings still take pride in Islam. Aside from this, MSSN has produced Muslim elites, professionals, politicians, academics and business giants who today are vanguards of Islam. It has also produced great Islamic scholars and da’wah workers whose indelible mark in da’wah efforts in this country cannot be erased by time. OUR CONTRIBUTION TO NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT The contributions of MSSN to National development are enormous and these include, serving as a potent tool of national unity and cohesion. Apart from all its members that cut across geographical and ethnic barriers, MSSN is promoting national integration and building bridges through its programmes and activities that emphasise the values and brotherhood of Islam in particular and unity of mankind in general. The programmes of this great society is geared towards giving a proper orientation to the future leaders as we believe that morality, right attitude and dignity of labour is a sine qua non to national development. The society has continued to produce generation of outstanding leaders including vice presidents, presidential aspirants, governors, great politicians and academic giants. They have contributed immensely to our national life. The society has remained a pressure group working for not only bringing the Muslim in closer union and inculcating in them true Islamic spirit and faith in Allah, but also promoting the general welfare of the Muslims and defending their fundamental human right in any community. OUR CHALLENGES AND PROSPECT To our leaders and fathers, the situation of the society today calls for a sober reflection. At sixty, the society is still battling with government and educational policies that are discriminatory to religious profession and practice. Today, our members are denied the use of hijab in Law schools, military and paramilitary training schools, and other professional institutions all over the federation. Our younger ones are being brutalized on daily basis in the secondary schools especially in the southern part of the country. We all must stand against this and give MSSN our moral and financial support. At 60, the Muslim students as a vanguard of change and the hope of the Muslim Ummah will embark on aggressive campaign to dislodge any government or political party that is anti-Islam. We will work tirelessly to destroy any political structure that wants to scuttle and ruin the future of the Muslim child. We will be ready to collaborate with political parties whose agenda is promising to the survival of the young Muslim. MSSN has done a lot of good to this Nation as a whole and to the Muslim Ummah in particular. We all must support it and work towards making it a pride to an average Muslim parent in this country and beyond. ARISE O MUSLIM LEADERS Iran meta oye ki ose eru. You our fathers in the South West served the occultist Yoruba elders. We, your children are presently serving them, do you want to sit down and allow your grandchildren serve these people who have clearly shown that they do not want us to excel. We want to ask the members of the Afenifere socio- cultural group the criteria of becoming one of the spokespersons for the Yoruba race, the Yoruba council of elders should tell us the qualification of becoming an elder in the Yoruba land. Is it by Age, education, status, achievements or belonging to a cult. What gave them the audacity to nominate names of Yoruba to the national dialogue and no Muslim merits the list. This is not new to us MSSN, the south west is predominantly Muslim with more than 60% of the population, but the region have consistently been ruled by the Christians and their cults. We believe this political dominance will continue until and unless our fathers rise up and form what we in MSSN calls FORUM OF PROGRESSIVE ELDERS IN YORUBA LAND. The forum would not only Challenge but also break the age long monopoly of power by these enemy of progress and the Muslims. We must rise up aggressively and reject the purported list of Yoruba delegates to the National conference as announced by Mr President, all major Islamic and youth organizations in the Yoruba land should reject this continued dominance by this cult whose aim is the political destruction of the Muslims in the south west. We must consult widely and come up with a robust plan to break this age long monopoly of views. We must resist and threaten any move to continue to dominate and marginalise the Yoruba Muslims in any form, and the time is now. We want to seize this opportunity to reject all the lists that emanated from the Yoruba and the South Western States especially Ondo, Ekiti and Osun State where all the delegates are Christians. They are lopsided and it shows clear maginalization of the Muslims in the South. We do not have confidence in the purported lists of delegates. This, to us is the beginning of failure of the conference if the lop-sidedness is not urgently corrected. TERROR IN THE NORTH The recent dimension the insurgency in the nation especially the north has taken is not only worrisome but unfortunate. The insurgence has declared war on the sovereignty of the nation by their continuous beating of the military intelligence and arsenals. We in MSSN are becoming so disturbed not only because our members are direct victims of the recent killings but also the insurgence have continued to claim the lives of innocent Nigerians without any solution at hand. We are calling on all stakeholders to as a matter of urgency do everything possible to stop this senseless killings and destruction of properties because a nation will only survive when the leaders and stakeholders take the life of the citizen sacred and are proactive about their protection. OUR HIJAB STRUGGLE Even though the struggle has started yielding results with the official approval of the use of the Islamic dress code in Muslim and community schools in Ekiti and Oyo state. We say this is still far from our target of full implementation of Islamic dress code in all government owned public schools irrespective of religious affiliations. We will continue with the struggle until our right is granted and school dressing cum curriculum in the south and most especially south western part of Nigeria give room for Islamic principle. This is because the schools are government’s properties to which we are all stakeholders as far as governance is concerned. APPRECIATION MSSN wish to sincerely appreciate those who have made today a reality, we say it’s only Allah who can reward you for making our dream come true. This programme is a little token from us your sons and daughters in MSSN towards rejuvenating and rededicating MSSN and the current membership to the service of Al-Islam. We believe that at the end of these marathon events, MSSN would have been recharged to serve Islam and the Muslims better. We pray that we will all live to celebrate MSSN at its centenary. We say jazakumullahu khairan for not only honouring our invitation but also for physically attending it. CONCLUSION Subhanaka Allahuma wabihamdika ashadu an laillaha illa anta astagfiruka wa atuubu ilaik. Wasalamu alaikum warahmatullah wabarakaatuh. ABDULAZEEZ SIRAJUDEEN FOLAYEMI MSSN NATIONAL PRESIDENT RABIU THANNI 1435 (MARCH 9TH 2014)
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 08:04:56 +0000
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