Depriving faithful in the name of self reward for clergical leadership
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| Muslims faithful at the eid-ground of Abdul-Azeez Islamic Foundation |
Again, last Friday, the Muslim community the
world over celebrated another of their Sallah Festival with its conventional
fanfare and symbolic reaffirmation of their faiths in Allah (S.W.A.), which the
killing of ram connotes. One may see this as the spiritual context of the festival.
It however goes much more to the physical realm with sharing in the spirits of
Islamic Motherhood.
In Its value as a complete way of life for
mankind, the Quran as well as the Hadith of the Holy Prophet Muhammed
(P.B.A.U.H.) is clear about what makes a complete Muslim out of the many
demands of this Sallah Day. One of these is that the values of the Umah’s
leader called Amir (the Chief Imam in local parlance) are put to task in the
areas of transparency, justice, trustworthiness and fairness to all Muslim
faithful in his Umah.
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| Imam Lekki leading the Eid-Prayer at The Abdul-Azeez Ground |
This publication is coming more in purpose to
address an established faltered leadership or a leadership failure in this
regard, which almost tore a Umah apart. Then came this challenge of any due
value in its publication. The Prophet (P.B.A.U.H.) has explicitly made it clear
to us how best we can correct any social vice connected to us: by taking a
cause action to change it; by using mouth to condemn it openly when the former
is impossible; or applying the weakest of all – condemning it in your heart. It
is in my concerted opinion that whereas in this case in question, the aggrieved
members of the Umah appeared to have borne the burden of the condemnation by
heart far too long. Any further query for this publication then?
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| Imam (Dr.) Ibram leads Ansar'Deen Eid @ Club 9 Hall |
The
Story
It worth giving credit to members of a big
modern mosque in Unity Estate, as they embraced peace in the face of
provocative tension raised over what they allegedly described as “Unreserved
greed” of their Chief Imam for materials donated to the mosque.
The tension, according to report gathered by The Colloquium Tabloid, was not abrupt from the “Imam’s inequitable sharing
and selfish arrogation of the Sallah cow and ram donated to the mosque” for this
past Eid-Kabir Festival; it was rather a bottled up resentment against an
alleged “greed of the Imam” they claimed had subsisted and growing in impunity
over the past four years.
The aggrieved members of the mosque had
gathered in the mosque with a resolve to resist the leader’s greed this past
Sallah day with a pre-planned action to block his conventional carriage of the
mosque cow carcass from the mosque to his house in Alake, a distance of about
5kilometres from the mosque. But the interventions of some elders with counsel
to allow the Imam have his way averted a possible implosive religious crisis
that could have chattered the peace of the Estate for another round of
momentary discomfort. It must still be fresh in your memory that Newz Inidices
published the invasion of the Estate by a gang of sophisticated armed robbers
about four weeks past.
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| Alhaji Fetuga, A Community Leader and Chieftain of ACN at the Eid ground |
Giving reasons for the preference of the Imam
going with the cow to the members’ quest for their ‘right due’, one of the
elders who craved anonymity said there were clear signs that the Imam was ready
to suppress the mosques members’ angst against him by invoking ethnic
connotation if 'he was attacked'. The TCT was reliably informed that the Chief
Imam, said to be of Kaduna in ethnic origin, already had an inkling of the
members’ resolve to rise against him should he try to carry away the mosque’s
cow to his house this year. He was therefore said to have placed members of his
Hausa Community in his Alake residence on the alert for mobilization.
The TCT reporter who witnessed the scene
of the tension and the cow and ram processing into meat confirmed there could
possibly have been ethnic crisis grown out of the seemingly silent rumbling in
the mosque.
According to him, the Chief Imam, in response
to a member’s statement, said they (aggrieved members) should realize that he
was magnanimous enough by allowing the cow to be brought and killed in the mosque.
Adding further rhetorically, he queried in English Language highly corrupted
with his native accent: “which Yoruba Imam will ever allow the cow to be killed
in the mosque? They will take the cow to their house and no body will ever see
it again”.
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| R-L: Engr Osuolale; Abu Mumin; & an Ustaz; all of Abdul-Azeez Foundat |
But in what would later come as a falsehood
of this assertion, his Assistant who led the Eid-Prayer and simply goes by the
name “Imam Lekki” to the mosque members exhibited complete modesty and
leadership transparency when he got his share of the meat.
Imam Lekki was not at the scene of the cow
processing and sharing. A fore-leg part was left behind as his share. Seeing it,
Imam Lekki was simply alarmed and he screamed over what he alone would do with
“a quarter-part of whole cow”, as he shouted it in Yoruba: “Emi nikan tan; ida kan ninu ida merin malu, ki ni ki n fi se? He
only cut a part of it and asked some members “who had not got” to share the
rest.
Another case of ready aggressiveness
displayed by the Imam was his insultive language to another member for touching
the head of the cow being packed into sacks for carriage to his (Imam’s) house.
Touching the cow’s head, the light
complexioned middle age man simply jocularly day-dreamed in wish that the cow
head could “at least be left for (them) to share”. The Imam replied with a
serious show of disdain that he should come and carry it “if is your father
that brought it to the mosque”.
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| Alhaji Ashaolu, the CDA Chairman, Idera Titun CDA, Unity Estate Zone 2, Unity Estate led members of his Family to Eid |
For four years running consecutively, Ogbeni
Rauf Aregbesola, the Executive Governor of the State of Osun has made it a
tradition to donate a cow and a ram to this big Central mosque that is more
popular by its “Foundation” appellation. For the four years however, 98% of the
Muslim faithful worshipping in the mosque, including a large number of the
mosque workers, never had a share of the cow at any year for a taste, yet many
of them are the needy for it at such important day of a Muslim life.
Announcing his gesture to commence the
religious social support for the Muslim Umah (the Arabic word for
community/organization) of the Foundation in 2008 while he was on spiritual Iledi not unconnected with his struggle
to reclaim his stolen mandate in the mosque, the Quintessential Symbol and
Iconic Passion of United Yoruba race today specifically directed that a cow be
brought to the mosque for the “specific benefits of the mosque members”.
Accordingly, this gesture was announced to
members at Eid-ground of that year, enjoining members to come to the mosque for
its sharing after Zubir (2pm prayer). But before noon of that day, the cow was
said to have been banished to another land -- the home of a highly placed elite
member of the Foundation -- in a circumstance said to be remotely connected with
the chairman and founder of the mosque.
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| The little ram left to be shared among over 50 members due for the sallah cow |
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| The cow for the Chief Imam containing three full thie, head and other viscera organspart |
Coming as a matter for investigation afterwards
by TCT
in the process of the resentment building for this year’s intended up-rising
against the alleged greed, the information gathered exonerated the Chairman of the
Foundation for any wrong doing. Rather the Imam was found culpable in a cow
round tripping deal involving a sum of N100, 000
He (Imam) was said to have sold the cow to
the “innocent” Chairman at this cost pretentiously. This situation that almost
backfired against the Chairman caused him to ‘insist that “the cow must be
slaughtered in the mosque and shared for the members” thence, as one Alfa who
claimed to be brother to the Chairman explained.
This may not be far form the truth, as some
members confirmed that for the past three years now, the cow and the ram were
always slaughtered and processed in the mosque but “the Imam never shared the
cow”.
Ever as the case of last year, which were found
not to be too dissimilar to this year’s and I can duly confirm as an authority source,
the Chairman of the Foundation also always buy a ram required for the symbolic
slaughter at the Eid-ground to declare the festival’s convention open; for
which purpose is also the ram Ogbeni
Rauf Aregbesola always sent accompanying the Cow.
It was alleged that no year gone bye without
the Imam being tied to one scandal of greed or the other. Last year, the
resident Assistant Imam, a young Ghanaian and student of Lagos State University
who recently left the service of the mosque unceremoniously fingered this Imam’s
pernicious greed for his displeasure with the settings of the mosque.
Taking me to confidence over a N40,000 given
out for mosque’s ram by the Chairman, the Assistant condemned the ram brought
to the mosque for this cost by the imam. He explained the “annoying part of it”
that he actually saw the “small ram” he (the Imam) claimed to have bought in
his house when he (the Assistant) took the money to him. The Assistant’s regret
was that the Chairmen specifically instructed him to buy the ram himself, but
he only felt it was reasonable for him to allow order of hierarchy prevailed.
As part of the worse of the scandals majority
of the members have condemned as “Harram”, which they claimed could be too
grevious to bear from a Chief Imam of the status of “central Mosque” and Eid
prayer, was the habit of inflating the number of alfas in the mosque to get
materials from donors without making the efforts to even share those available
Alfas in their small numbers.
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| And there go the Umah's cow meat Fully loaded into sacks and being ferried to the Imam's house |
Several case studies were cited regarding
yearly malt and cash donations to the mosque by one neighborhood
philanthropist, a popular beer distributor, simply identified as Alhaji Tasho.
The TCT reporter who caught the Chief
Imam leading two other Alfas in and out of the Alahji’s house would later confirm
that both cash and malt were also received for this year’s Eid-Kabir sallah. He
however authoritatively gathered that while the Imam gave the total numbers of
the Alfas in the mosque to be 25, the Alhaji donated 50 units of six-bottled
packs of Guinness malt at two packs each and as well backed it up with a disclosed sum of
cash too. It was however unfortunate that none of the true mosque Alfas, about
11 in all, including the designated workers, ever received or were yet to
receive their share as at the time of filling this report for this publication
– clear five days after sallah..
Last 2011 Eid-Kabir year and for this year’s Itikaf, the Alhaji donated 100 units of
the malt for each respectively. I personally witnessed those of last year’s being
loaded into the Chief Imam’s car this year January there about. One pack was
left for only two of the deserving Alfas and dedicated workers of the mosque to
share in three bottles at piece. What a callous greed!
Don’t ask me what the Imam would have wanted
to do with about the 90 units he ferried away. The market value for that wholesome at
N100 per bottle is N54,000.
At any rate and anyway, a relative peace may
have been achieved this year. But with the Imam gone away with the cow again to
the displeasure of the members denied their dues, the next lunar year of
Eid-Kabir Sallah could only welcome a fragile peace if the situation remains the
same.
Already, some of these members have vowed
never to pray behind him again. It only tells of the danger the situation poses
to the Umah and the Foundation. The remedy lay in the hands of all concerned to
call those necessary to order at appreciating justice, leadership transparency
and equitable allocation of the mosque resources to those deserving.
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| Hajia Mustapha hangs out at Eid-ground for Utba |
Ogbeni Aregbe, my Idol and leader, has done the
wish of Allah in social and humanity cause, even well enough to make all of the
Foundation members have enough for the Sallah. In a call pulled through to one
Mr. Kazeem, the Governor’s aide and brother in charge of distribution of the Sallah
gifts, he confirmed that the cow and a ram were for the mosque as brought
there. He added that the ram personally for the Imam was taken directly to his
house.
It is therefore rather advisable that the cow
donation be stopped forthwith if it could not serve its purpose of feeding the
multitudes. The worst however is to see it becoming the factor of division for
the Foundation and in daily prayers of the mosque – one of the big pride of the
Muslim community in Alimosho.
I reject this tag for The Symbol who is only overwhelmed by his natural attributes of Oranmiyan in humanity cause: Aregbe’s
cow gift tears mosque apart! Mo koo
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As she stood before the dignitaries and the laurel presenter, she was probably the only one that could tell what the day meant to her. Even though the event here in question could be insignificant in matter and context to you as I write about it now, it was a day of expression; a medium of communication between a father and daughter. The communication was non verbal yet too loud with ultrasonic pitch to deafening. The message was simple, yet a phrase laden with expressions of a thousand sentences. The aura of the message was all over her and radiantly beaming to me -- the father, the receiver.
Ironically, non of these plights of Barakat
ever evaded the knowledge of His Excellency, Babatunde Raji Fashola, as each of
the unfortunate events that confined Barakat to out-of-school and homelessness
were duly reported to him as the Chief Security Officer of the State. And
unfortunate enough, the cloud of threat by the exam fraud syndicate still hangs
over Barakat’s home as the patriarch vows to do the needful for systemic merit.
