ALMIGHTY Allah declares in the Holy Qur’an, As-Shura, 42:10-13 thus, “Whatever it be wherein Ye differ, the decision Thereof is with God: Such is God my Lord: In Him I trust, And to Him I turn. (He is) the Creator Of the heavens And the earth: He has made For you pairs From among yourselves, And pairs among cattle: By this means does He Multiply you: there is nothing Whatever like unto Him, And He is the One That hears and sees (all things).To Him belong the keys Of the heavens and the earth: He enlarges and restricts. The Sustenance to whom He will: for He knows Full well all things. The same religion has He Established for you as that Which He enjoined on Noah–The which We have sent By inspiration to thee–And that which We enjoined On Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Namely, that ye should remain Steadfast in Religion, and make No divisions therein: To those who worship Other things than God, Hard is the (way) To which thou callest them. God chooses to Himself Those whom He pleases, And guides to Himself Those who turn (to Him).”
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In our determination to fashion a unique academic brief for the proposed Crescent University, Abeokuta, the IMA Intellectual Summit, under the chairmanship of Professor Nurudeen Adedipe, foundation Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta and Dr Sulaiman Osho, Secretary-General of Islamic Mission for Africa (IMA) as secretary, we broke into the five colleges after the initial opening and deliberations for three days.
The faculties are College of Environmental Sciences (COES), College of Information and Communications Technology (CICOT), College of Natural and Applied Sciences (CONAS), College of Social and Management Sciences (COSMAS) and College of Law (COL).
The summit identified the departments for each college, the admission requirements, the procedures for registration, the matriculation, the regulation governing the award of Bachelor Degrees, the course workload for students, course examinations, classification of degrees, graduation requirements, long-vacation programme; mode of operation, eligibility, registration, finance advantages of the programme and recommended procedures for processing student’s application; and others.
In the academic brief, in each department, we identified the programme; objectives; the list of courses per semester and level; ore courses, required courses, and elective courses; description of courses; the units per course; research projects; description of courses and others.
Each college was assigned a chairman and secretary and were asked to co-opt faculty members from any university or department that could be of assistance and make unique contributions and improvements in the courses of the faculty.
Thus, the Intellectual Summit expanded from 100 professors to 300 faculty members from various universities to actualise the academic brief for Crescent University.
The Muslim professors insisted that their services were gratis as “…call to duty for God and humanity…” and for the emancipation of quality education for the first Muslim university in the South West.
Professor Julius Okojie, Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) from 2006 to 2016, noted when we went to the NUC for the first appearance in 2003 after the submission of all our documents that “the proposed Crescent University has the best team with Judge Bola Ajibola SAN, of the World Court at the head of the team; four former Vice-Chancellors; and great professors from various universities as members of the Academic Brief team to the NUC.”
Professor Okojie noted that the Crescent University brochure had been chosen as the best in Nigeria, and therefore recommended to all proposed universities to meet with us for their respective publication of their brochures to promote their institutions.
Various calls were made to me from different parts of Nigeria for assistance on the publication of their brochures as recommended by the NUC to the proposed universities.
Meanwhile, it should be noted that it was the Crescent University Law that was first ready, under the chairmanship of Mr Mahruf Adesegun Ajibola, SAN, in the IMA Intellectual Summit, which was submitted immediately to the NUC in Abuja.
After we broke the summit into the colleges and departments for the design of the programmes, I recommended to the chairman of the summit, Professor Nurudeen Adedipe, the appointment of Professor Lai Oso for the design of the Mass Communications programme.
After the approval of my proposal, the chairman appointed me to serve as the secretary to design the Mass Communications Department programme, which we did within three weeks, and submitted the report to form part of the academic brief of the Crescent University.
However, after about three weeks into the IMA Intellectual Summit, the Nasrul-Lahi-il-Fatih (NASFAT) Society team that was invited as recommended to me by Judge Bola Ajibola, SAN, after meeting with the leadership of the organisation in Lagos at a programme, met with the chairman of our summit, Professor Adedipe, on their wish to set up a university as well.
But he asked them to meet with him at Ibadan, as he was in Abeokuta for the establishment of Crescent University for the Islamic Mission for Africa (IMA).
After the meeting in Ibadan with Professor Adedipe, it was agreed with the NASFAT for them to start a university, too, which formed the foundation for establishment of Fountain University, Osogbo, in 2007.
Almighty Allah declares in Rum, 30:58-60: “Verily, We have propounded For men, in this Qur’an. Every kind of Parable: But if thou bring to them Any Sign, the Unbelievers Are sure to say, “Ye Do nothing but talk vanities.”Thus does God seal up The hearts of those Who understand not. So patiently persevere: for Verily the promise of God Is true: nor let those Shake thy firmness, who have (Themselves) no certainty of faith.”
May Almighty Allah accept our acts of da’wah as acts of worship, Ameen.
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