Professor Nurudeen Adedipe: Exit of a mental giant (II)

ALMIGHTY Allah declares in the Holy Qur’an, Anbiyaa, 21:34-35: “We granted not to any man Before thee permanent life (Here): if then thou shouldst die, would they live permanently? Every soul shall have A taste of death: And We test you by evil and by good by way of trial. To Us must ye return.”

In the welcome address of Judge Abdul-Jabbar Bola Ajibola, SAN, he thanked the Muslim intellectuals for responding to our invitation in multitude, and challenged them to rise up to our quest for setting up a Muslim university to meet up with the backward trend in acquiring university education by our children.

Besides, we identified the departments for take-off and faculties. We appointed Barrister Maruf Ajibola chairman and three others to come up with the university’s Law. We assigned the packaging of the master plan design of the Crescent University to Alhaji Waheed Kadiri, Rector of the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, and the Chairman of the Crescent University Planning Committee, Professor Nurudeen Adedipe and the Secretary of the Crescent University Planning Committee, Alhaji Sulaiman Osho, to compile the reports of the committee after three months as the academic brief of the proposed Crescent University, Abeokuta, for submission to the National Universities Commission, Abuja, as part of requirements for the issuance of the licence to operate as full-fledged university of the Islamic Mission for Africa (IMA).

Meanwhile, as part of the politicking that started in the course of the huge assignments, Professor Nurudeen Adedipe told me that the NASFAT team on the summit had met with him during the break time that they needed him to help them package the academic brief for a new university too.

But he had told them to meet him at his home in Ibadan for discussions, because it was Judge Bola Ajibola, SAN, that brought him for the IMA Intellectual Summit, and he couldn’t discuss further with them at the summit. Great man of conscience!

But that was the genesis for the establishment of Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State, as the NASFAT team later met him at his home in Ibadan to help them for the academic brief. Professor Adedipe later told me that he was helping them to get site for the university in Osogbo by visiting the governor of Osun State then, Chief Olagunsoye Oyinlola. They succeeded as Crescent University got a licence in 2005 while Fountain University got its own in 2007.

Before Professor and I started packaging the reports of the departments and faculties in the academic brief, I travelled to Cairo University, Egypt, to meet with my PhD supervisor in Communication and Media, Professor Sammy Tayie. It was just the following day that I arrived in Cairo in 2003 that Judge Bola Ajibola, SAN, phoned me that Professor Nurudeen Adedipe had phoned and threatened to resign as the chairman of the summit if I didn’t return immediately to conclude the work.

I had to leave the meeting with my supervisor at Cairo University and promised to return to Cairo after the submission of the academic brief to the NUC in Abuja.

When I phoned Professor Nurudeen Adedipe from Cairo, he said, “Sulaiman, you must come down immediately for us to complete this academic brief because we have limited time to complete this assignment.”

The mental giant told me his encounters with the late Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Abdul-Aziz Arisekola-Alao, as he invited him before us that he wanted to start a university. He said he declined to take up the assignment because Aare Arisekola didn’t have any educational institute set up by him except giving donations to proprietors of schools.

Hence, he said he had taken up the IMA assignment because of our beautiful dossier and our great energy in setting up IMA Nursery-Primary School, IMA Secondary School, IMA Library and Audio-Visual Centre, IMA hostels for students, IMA Hospital, IMA hall for public lectures and Muslim marriages and ceremonies, IMA mosque and IMA guest house. Thus, I jetted back to Nigeria immediately for the great work, apologising to him.

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May Almighty Allah rest the soul of Professor Nurudeen Adedipe and grant him Aljanna Firdous, Ameen.

Almighty Allah Declares in Holy Qur’an Munafiquun, 63:10-11) thus: “And spend something (in charity) Out of the substance Which We have bestowed on you, before Death Should come to any of you and he should say, ‘O my Lord! Why didst Thou not give me Respite for a little while? I should then have given (Largely) in charity, and I Should have been one of the doers of good’. But to no soul Will God grant respite When the time appointed (For it) has come; and God Is well acquainted with (all) that ye do.”