Date: 2013-01-04

The Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria (MSSN) was founded in 1954 in response to the yearnings of Muslim Students for a platform to discuss and find solutions to their common problems and challenges especially in the face of hostile colonial and evangelical environment then prevalent in the country, particularly in then publicly-funded Educational Institutions which a group had used the instrumentality of Government to appropriate. The founding President of the Society was the late Dr. Abdullateef Adegbite CON. The Society is the spring-board of almost all the Muslim Youth associations in this country. The MSSN propagates Islam through peaceful and persuasive methods as taught by Islam.

Around 1974, the Society decided to build its National Headquarters at a central location in the country and that informed the choice of Ilorin where a 120 by 120 square meter parcel of land was acquired for the purpose. The land was initially bought from Faagba family and was re-bought in 1976 from Aare Ogele who was then said to be the original rightful owner of the land. The foremost Lawyer whose Chamber prepared the Deed of Conveyance of the Land is today one of the oldest and most successful Lawyers this Country has ever produced. His name is Ibrahim Abdullahi, who later became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF).

Between the 21st and 25th of November, 2012, the Society held a National Retreat in Ilorin. The programme was graced by the past leaders of the Society as far back as the early 1960's and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees (B.O.T). The leadership of the Society used the opportunity of the National Retreat to visit the said parcel of land, on which its National Secretariat under construction has been standing since 1980, along Ilorin Airport Road opposite the College of Aviation, Ilorin, Kwara State.

To our chagrin and utter disbelief, it was discovered during the visit that an illegal structure was being erected on a portion of our 32-plot parcel of land. Traders around the land told us that the construction of the illegal structure was being rushed and it started just about two weeks earlier. A call was made to Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, who is one of our respected former members in Ilorin. He told us to be calm because he was not sure we knew the location of the land as he believed that nothing could have warranted trespass on a parcel of land which many people in Ilorin knew about. He further emphasized that land speculation is an uncommon feature in Ilorin.

The Muslim Students in and around Ilorin then decided to physically stop the illegal construction on the land. But the elders of the M.S.S.N., particularly Prof. Is-haq Oloyede and Mallam Olaolu Ali SAN prevented us from taking such a step. They further informed us that they were getting in touch with Christian leadership in the State and a peaceful resolution would be reached and more so the Ilorin Central Mosque was to be commissioned and any distraction or disruption would not be in the best interest of Islam. It was a rude shock for us to learn that the uncompleted church in question was burnt two days to the commissioning of Ilorin Central Mosque on the 12th of December, 2012.

We are of the strong opinion that the burning was a calculated attempt by the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Kwara State to scare public figures from attending the Grand Opening Ceremony of the Ilorin Central Mosque and to create a false sense of insecurity in the State of Harmony. Subsequent events also show that burning the uncompleted church building was also designed to deliberately malign, denigrate and disgrace the Professor with a view to, among others, securing the position of NIREC Executive Secretary which was shamefully requested for in their media propaganda published in The Nation of Friday 21st December, captioned “THREAT TO RELIGIOUS PEACE IN KWARA THE STATE OF HARMONY”.

Members of the Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria in Ilorin were able to gather some other heinous motives for the malicious campaign against the respected Professor. If not for malice and wickedness, how would sane people believe that the immediate past President of the Association of African Universities (AAU), a former Chairman of all Vice-Chancellors in Nigeria and one of the most successful Vice-Chancellors this country has ever produced would now be championing arson? The reason for their campaign is now obvious!

We are sad about the turn of events and more importantly the fact that our leaders suspected us despite our repeated insistence of innocence about the burning but we take solace in the fact that the perpetrators will be identified and brought to book. The Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, promptly paid a visit to the place after a malicious and premeditated press conference was held on Wednesday 12th December, 2012. By Thursday morning, the road to the Airport had been blocked by the Christian trespassers who burnt their church with a view to achieving part of their original aim of preventing the successful commissioning of the Ilorin Central Mosque. It is also surprising that while the trespassers have access to the land, our own leaders prevented us from going there, and on our insistence they choose to be accompanying us to the land, our own land.

In the C.A.N propaganda, the burnt church broadcast to the world was a completed magnificent cross-bearing edifice contrary to the uncompleted illegal structure on the land. What a deceit in the name of religion! In the mean time, the peace makers were being presented and treated as accomplices; this is the height of provocation and injustice. It is our belief that our leaders would have learnt their bitter lesson that they are not dealing with religious people but people who trade in religion.

To further demonstrate that the CAN leadership and the members of the Living Faith Church are not interested in a genuine peaceful resolution of the matter, CAN on 24th December 2012 went ahead to erect a bill-board on the disputed part of our land.

After the peace meeting with the Commissioner of Police on Friday, December 20, 2012 with all the stakeholders, it was resolved that a follow-up meeting be held to chart a way forward. Despite the fact that we suggested that the meeting be held on Saturday so that our national officers would be able to return after the meeting, CAN insisted that the meeting should be held on Monday (December 24)

We were already in Ibadan when we learnt that CAN had changed its mind that the meeting would hold on Saturday (December 22). We returned to Ilorin for the Saturday meeting and had to wait for a clear one hour before CAN leaders came to the meeting they scheduled. Due to the lateness of CAN, the narration of the background story by the Chairman of the Peace Mission as well as the cantankerous attitude of one bigot called Special Apostle Elias Oyeniyi, who claimed to have been a Permanent Secretary in the Kwara State Ministry of Education when Alhaji Ahmad Kamaldeen was the Commissioner, the meeting could not progress much and it was unanimously agreed that the meeting would continue on Monday December 24, 2012. It was that day they chose to erect a bill-board on the disputed part of our land.

We were at the venue of the meeting on Monday as scheduled. After waiting for over one hour without seeing CAN leaders, we had to depart to our various destinations across the nation. The Peace Mission Chairman's persistent calls to CAN were not picked. Six hours later, we received a text message giving a false excuse that their absence was due to an emergency meeting of Kwara State CAN on an alleged threat to Christian worshippers in 10 Northern states. All the parties, which included our side, the peace brokers, the land owners and the speculators had to disperse.

Four hours later, another call was received by us that at the instance of a Christian leader, the meeting should be rescheduled as soon as possible even if it would be the evening of Christmas day. Eventually, another meeting was fixed for this Wednesday, 26 December. However, having toyed with the national leadership of the MSSN with provocative statements and poor sense of timing and organization, the MSSN has decided to be sending just a low level representation to the subsequent meetings. In other words, the national leadership of the MSSN that had relocated to Ilorin to meet with an apparently biased Christian Commissioner of Police can no longer be meeting with inconsistent people. Our leaders coerced us to participate in various meetings where provocative statements were being made but we have enough of that.

Therefore, the MSSN deems it malicious and patently wicked that Christians would burn their own church and blame it on Muslims as they did on December 12, 2012 and as they have been doing based on information at our disposal and even in public domain. A few examples will suffice:

1. On the 30th of August 2011, the Vanguard newspaper reported that one Mrs. Lydia Joseph was arrested while making an attempt to bomb St. John Catholic Church in Bauchi City. She was caught by other church members after having sprayed the church building with petrol and setting the church ablaze.

2. In the Leadership newspaper of January 29, 2012, page 9, there was a report of the burning of the Church of God Mission International in Port-Harcourt, the Rivers State Capital. Our question is, who burnt down the church? Were the arsonists the Muslims in River State or Muslims in the North?

3. On the 28th of March, 2012, in The Nation newspaper on page 57, the worshipers at Gombe Deeper Life Church were sprayed with bullets that killed some and wounded many. When arrests were made by the Security Agencies, the suspects were confirmed Christians whereas it had earlier been claimed that the act was perpetrated by Muslims. Also two men named Hassan Ojudu and Samaila Yakubu, the duo confirmed Christians, were arrested by Security Agencies in Gombe town with a vehicle loaded with explosive devices and ammunitions. If they had succeeded in detonating those explosives and using the ammunitions, Muslims would have been accused of being responsible.

4. Again, on the 22nd of June, 2012, in the Daily Post newspaper, a Turbaned and Caftan-wearing Christian man made an attempt to burn down the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Yenagoa.

Apart from the above, Nigerians would recollect that on May 22, 2012, The Punch newspaper and many other dailies reported one John Akpaku who wanted to bomb the Radio House in Abuja while the Ministerial Briefing was being held. Many Nigerians still remember the contradictory statements of two major Security Agencies in the country on the failed bombing attack. If the man had succeeded in blowing himself and the target up, the bombing would have been blamed on Muslims.

The MSSN while watching all this melodrama and the misrepresentation of Islam restrained itself from joining issues with anyone for the sake of National security. Besides, we believe that it is the responsibility of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) to draw attention to all the atrocities and infractions being attributed wrongly to Muslims. We urge the NSCIA to be alive to its responsibilities in this regard. Nigerians know that Christians burn their churches for political and strategic reasons and we believe that they did the same on the uncompleted building on the MSSN land on December 12, 2012.

Visitors to Ilorin since the late 70s and 80s will testify to four gigantic bill boards with the inscription of Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria and a building under construction. There was also a low fence around the land. It is also public knowledge that the MSSN paid twice for the land and it further took the combined efforts of the then Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Adamu Attah, the then Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Zulqarnain Gambari, the Late Dr. Olusola Saraki and the late Chief M.K.O Abiola to further compensate the original owners of the land on the commencement of the construction of the MSSN building. Furthermore, when the Kwara State Government decided to acquire the entire area where MSSN land was situated for its proposed Mechanic Village in 1988, the MSSN parcel of land was part of the acquired land. The Society promptly wrote to the State Government drawing their attention to the MSSN land and the property being developed on it. The State Government, through the Kwara State Town Planning Authority, replied the MSSN and excised the portion of the MSSN land as evident in their letter dated 10th March, 1988.

The Kwara State Government which had then removed the four famous MSSN unjustly requested the Society to restore the bill-boards. MSSN paid for this and it was officially receipted. The Society has all valid documents to prove its ownership of the land, and surely the latter day trespassers who are parading fake documents and claiming to have bought three plots out of our land in the last two or three years will be exposed with their accomplices within the Kwara State Civil Service at the right time. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Kwara State is therefore warned to desist from misleading the public and stop their attempt to vainly dent the reputation of those who are contributing to Nation Building.

Meanwhile, since baseless allegations and malicious propaganda are being mounted against Muslim leaders who have always insisted on the peaceful resolution of the issue, it becomes imperative to call Muslim leaders and former members of MSSN including Prof. Oloyede who have been holding our hands to distance themselves from this issue henceforth and allow us to use all the resources at our disposal to reclaim every inch of the 32 plots of land that rightfully belongs to us. Though the trespassers are laying claim to three plots of the MSSN land, the Society is not willing to concede an inch of the land because the unwarranted invasion of our land might be done with a view to spying on us or probably wreaking havoc on innocent MSSN members.

Since we cannot insist on an apology from the slanderers because Prof. Oloyede has said he does not require any, we wish to state our collective resolve that no group has the monopoly of propaganda, destructive campaign and dearth of civility. Now that our former member, Prof. Oloyede, has been vilified, arrested and humiliated based on the directive of CAN to a Christian Commissioner of Police, Prof. Oloyede's traducers are not likely to stop at their diabolical but futile mission of denigrating and making attempts at extinguishing the light of Islam. The MSSN urges the security agencies to be alive to their responsibilities as we are of the strong opinion that those who burnt their own church can also commit murder to achieve vain material gains and blame it on others. We wish to further challenge the security agencies to expose the circumstances surrounding the burning of the church and fish out the perpetrators.

Religious leaders should marvel at how religion is being bastardized by the so-called men of God whose stock-in-trade is forgery and dubiousness. The MSSN hereby calls on Bishop Oyedepo, the respected founder of two universities in this country, to call CAN, Kwara State Chapter, to order and stop the violation of the privacy of the MSSN on its own land.

A neutral observer would appreciate the extent we have gone in toeing the path of peace in this matter. From the catalogue of alleged atrocities that Christians were said to have experienced as narrated by Apostle Oyeniyi, we understand that his clique had decided to use any matter involving Bishop Oyedepo to settle the alleged old scores irrespective of the viability or otherwise of the disputation. Most of what he said were realized to be false and unfounded. In any case, the problem at hand is not a religious issue per se between CAN and MSSN. It is a land issue between two claimants to a parcel of land which a group purportedly claimed to have bought in May 2012 though we had bought our complete land since 1976.

We pray that Allah expose those who are hell-bent on destroying Nigeria under the guise of achieving personal and illegal gains through the commercialization of religion.

Signed

SIRAJUDEEN ABDULAZEEZ

National President

IBRAHIM GIWA

National Secretary General