THE Lagos State deputy governor, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, will be the special guest of honour at a lecture commemorating the 85th anniversary of the Crescent Bearers (1939), Lagos, an association founded in 1939 by young Muslim men from Lagos Island.
The event, which combines with a luncheon, will be chaired by Professor Tajudeen Gbadamosi while Mrs Maryam Lemu, an Islamic motivational speaker and Head of Administration at New Horizons College, Niger State, will deliver the keynote lecture with the theme ‘Islam and Family Values – Building A Nation of Citizens’.
As part of the celebration, a Jumat service will hold today at the Crescent Bearers (1939), Lagos Masjid in Abijo, off Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos.
The vision of the association was driven by a desire to “promote western education for Muslims for their collective improvement and upward social mobility in a colonial society in which Muslims not only experienced marginalisation but were also typically held up to ridicule and suffered social opprobrium for their religious beliefs and cultural attachments.”
With this objective in mind, a group of 16 young Muslim men who came from families indigenous to Lagos Island founded the Crescent Bearers on November 11, 1939.
The founding fathers were Mobolaji Odunewu, S.M. Onigbanjo, I.A.S. Adewale, A. Fatayi-Williams, M.R.B. Ottun, M.N. Ola Aboaba, M.O. Ekunsumi, N.A. Kekere-Ekun and R.A. Gbajumo. Others include Ade Thanni, A.W. Williams, K.B. Shomade, T.A.B. Oki, K.A. Fashola, S.A. Fashola (who died as Olorunsola) and Hamzat O. Balogun.
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Also widely known as CB, the association has remained faithful to the objectives of the founding fathers and lofty ideals of Islam 85 years on.
Still acting as a bridge for the sectional divide and competing tendencies not only among its members but also between the various Islamic sects in Lagos, the association is going strong with a maximum of 30 members, fostering its ideals among members and the wider Muslim Ummah in Lagos through religious and community-centred educational, religious and socio-cultural activities.
Some of the achievements of the association include the maintenance and refurbishment of Crescent Bearers mourners’ pavilions in some cemeteries, charitable support to improve educational facilities and infrastructure in Muslim-owned schools across the state and building of an Islamic centre, along with the funding of research papers in support of the education of Muslims in Lagos.
In commemoration of its 80th anniversary, the association built and handed over the internationally-acclaimed CB 1939 Lagos Masjid to the Abijo community in Abijo GRA, Lekki, Lagos.
In all its engagements, the CB continues to foster the lofty ideals of Islam via mutual understanding, interest and co-operation among members to promote the total education of the Muslim child by way of scholarship awards to deserving Muslim students of Lagos State origin.
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