Renaissance of Islam through IMA and Crescent University (VI)

ALMIGHTY Allah declares in Holy Qur’an, Ash-Shuraa, 42:10-13: “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).”

Just as inspirations come in different ways for writers, musicians, artistes and other creative artists, we also have triggers in different forms in the realisation of our objectives. Inspirations come when we are in sleep, showers, driving, relaxing, walking, or dressing. Hence, we must quickly jot it down.

It was during this foundation stage of IMA that Justice Bola Ajibola, SAN, was coming from The Hague in 1996 after allocating the six acres to IMA.

Our first staff at IMA was Mr Nurudeen Akande (Baba Ijaye) of blessed memory. He was employed as the gardener on site of IMA after the bulldozer cleared the site and left the major trees.

Baba Ijaye had a wonderful cursive hand-writing when he submitted his application to me at the OGBC Radio office of Alhaji Salih Lai Labode, the IMA treasurer. He submitted the Testimonial and School Certificate result of Government College, Ibadan to support his application.

As I was wondering with the papers given to me and his application letter, Alhaji Labode just said, “…Sulaiman, just act on the papers to give him the employment…” I said, “Okay sir…”

The employment was given to Nurudeen Akande as gardener, and he proved to be diligent, hard-working, and effective on the duties. He always made sure that he cleared the bushes, and lowly cleared the grasses.

Arriving in Nigeria from the World Court, Justice Ajibola went straight to the site from the airport, and met Mr Akande on duty and saw the lowly grasses trimmed, and immediately got the inspiration that this site will not be bushy again as construction work must start immediately.

Justice Ajibola sent for me for a dinner that night with Alhaji Lai Labode and commended the inspiration he got from the services of Mr Akande when he visited the site.

We immediately engaged the services of the contractors, the Dukelands Construction Limited, and signed the contract for the construction of the IMA Library; IMA Hall; Guest House and Imam’s Lodge in 1997. The projects were completed and we commissioned them on June 16, 2001 with pomp and pageantry with guests from across Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, among others.

In the setting up of IMA Model Nursery and Primary School at the Africa Islamic Research Centre, Abeokuta, in September 2001, we set up IMA Education Committee with Professor Hussein Akande Abdul-Kareem (1939 to 2021), Professor Emeritus of Medical Bio-Chemistry at the Lagos State University and former president of Muslim Students’ Society, as the chairman; Dr Sulaiman A. Osho as secretary; Mr Yusuf Akinlabi Abdel-Salaam, a lecturer at MAPOLY as member and Alhaja Risikat Ogunfemi, Permanent Secretary, Ogun State government, as member.

A week to the resumption of schools, Professor Abdul-Kareem came and lodge at the IMA Research Centre Guest House and we worked on the Education Position Paper for the establishment of Nursery/Primary; Secondary Schools and University for Islamic Mission for Africa (IMA). We made recommendations for the start of the IMA Model Nursery and Primary School immediately.

The report was given to Justice Ajibola on Friday, and by Sunday, he called a meeting of the members of the education committee at the IMA Centre. He told all of us that we should start the school the next session, so that the school complex would have been completed, and he would have been able to buy a new Coaster bus to start the school.

Justice Ajibola saw our prompt negative non-verbal reactions to his comments and decided to call us one by one for our verbal reactions. We individually and collectively disagreed with him, and that the IMA Model Nursery and Primary School should start the following day as other schools in Ogun State.

Then he asked me for our budget to start the school at the Imam’s Lodge the following day, which was N110,000.

Thus, Justice Ajibola, in his wisdom, thanked every member of the education committee for our selfless service to Islam and the organisation, and asked Uncle Abdel-Salaam to follow him home and gave him the amount on our budget to start the school the following day.

The sub-committee of Mr Akinlabi Abdel-Salaam, with himself as chairman had the IMA librarian, Mr Taofeek Sekoni, and the Amirah of the IMA Youth Wing, Alhaja Rashidat Hussain. They went to Ibadan that Sunday to get all the items needed for the school to start the following day. We started with six students the following day.

We all assembled with Justice Ajibola at the IMAM’s Lodge to start the school with prayers. The chairs, tables, markers, boards, books, instructional materials and other educational materials were arranged for the studies to start.

May Almighty Allah assist us in the realisation of our da’wah objectives, Ameen.