Fadilat Sheikh Muhammad Mukhtar Ibrahim Dende is the founder and Chief Missioner of Lagos State-based Ansar Ruhul Islam Muslim Society of Nigeria (ARIMSON). Popularly known as Seidi, Sheikh Dende is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Al-Quwwah Brightway and Supplies and Al-Quwwah Farm Produce Livestock and Farm Product. The philanthropist also organises training for married Muslim women on how to live a successful marital life. In this interview with Rulers’ World’s OYEDAPO OYEWOLE, he speaks on the importance of the government to intensify efforts in the fight against corruption, among others.
Looking at your background as Sheikh (Islamic scholar) and founder of an NGO that is charity-focused, how would you describe the journey so far?
My father established Nurul Islamiyat Arabic and Islamic Institute which all of us, his children, attended. He established the Quranic School for the sake and benefit of the people of that community and his children were the first beneficiaries. I was trained by Alhaji Mukadam Abdulwahab who happened to be a student of my father. After the Arabic education, I was fortunate to attend Mahad L-Arabic, Ibadan, where I did my Diploma in Banking and Finance for my first degree. I took another course in Arabic and Islamic Studies. After then, I travelled to other Arab countries to do some short courses in the struggle to attain a higher and befitting Islamic education. I am still learning because as a Muslim, the learning of Islam is from cradle to grave. So we Muslims are not expected to stop especially when you are a custodian of Islamic knowledge.
Tell us the motive behind the establishment of an NGO?
It is true I am a founder of this Islamic Non-Governmental Organisation that is charity-focused. Let me start by saying that I didn’t plan to establish an NGO, what I was called to render is to give adult education to people, especially married women, because when women are married, they tend to think that they have outgrown the education aspect of Islam which is not supposed to be. In Islam, no matter how old you are, going by the teaching and injunction of Prophet Muhammad, you are expected to be learning, not just learning by asking questions, you are expected to have a teacher from whom you learn more.
You are expected to be a student till you die! A teacher is a student; your teacher is a student under another teacher, so we are all students. If you look at the world philosophically, everybody is in the struggle of learning where you are. You are learning by experience or you are learning as a student. If you are working, you are learning because the more you work, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the more you grow. So you are learning at your place of work, you are learning and you are gaining more experience, and this is why when companies want to hire, they will insist on people with years of experience, and a fresh graduate cannot compete at that level because he hasn’t gained such experience.
So while I was teaching adults, I had the privilege of getting more information about their marital life. That was when I observed that lots of married Muslim women and men are really suffering without help. So I decided to prepare myself as a bridge between them and the people that can help them. Then I don’t have anything to help them immediately but, I think through my mentor, I was connected to talk to people that are well-to-do in society. So, I made myself available as a bridge between the poor and the rich and that was when the initiative of creating an NGO came to my mind.
If you go to people who are rich that some people have not eaten and request for money to give them, or that some people are sick and need medical assistance, they will look at you as a fraudster. But if you incorporate it by registration, form a committee, get advisers, have an account wherein you are not the only signatory to and make it legally acceptable, it is then that people will believe you and not look at you as a fraudster.
I invited some people to join me and started creating awareness that there are many people that are suffering and really need help and consequently registered the foundation as an NGO, appointed a board of directors, and structured it in a way that any good establishment should be structured. So we started creating awareness among Muslims that Islam is not complete until you love your brother and sister as you love yourself. We started to educate people to imbibe that habit of showing love to one another. Love is not by mouth, you have to impact love into people’s lives by rendering some services and impact positively into other’s lives. We started letting people know that Islam is about love, sharing, caring, helping others, and rendering humanitarian and selfless services.
We thank God that we have been growing since we started and people have been keying into our initiative. We discovered that while trying to help others, we are helping ourselves and that is the keynote for me. Anytime you help another person, in return, you are helping yourself and the earlier people realise this and start helping others, the earlier they get help.
For how long have you been doing this?
I have been in this humanitarian service for about 22 years now.
Will you say you are fulfilled doing this?
I’ve not achieved one per cent of what I intend to do, because Muslims are still on the streets suffering. Muslim women are still seeking divorce under duress; Muslim children are uneducated, Muslim scholars are still working without being paid and they are being forced to be corrupt and nobody is helping them. Their faith is being affected. The rate of violence, the rate of enmity and hatred is growing more and more. So how can I say I’m fulfilled? Before I can say I’m fulfilled, I must have gotten to a stage where I’m part of the effort and process that reduces corruption, hatred, and evil that is happening in this country to a certain percentage and the society will be feeling that relief, and I will be able to say Alhamdulillah! I am able to control some level of evil and bad things that are happening in Nigeria to some extent. But now our aim is being defeated and we are almost helpless.
What are the challenges confronting you in your mission to serve humanity?
One of the challenges facing us is that parts of us in this struggle are turning against us by the society we are serving. The people we entrust money into their hands, once they have more problems they tend to misbehave. They tend to run away with the money in their hands if the money is not properly secured. Society is corrupting people day by day, so we need more scholars to come into this struggle. It’s not a must that they should join us. Let Muslims establish this kind of charity organisation that will be championing the welfare of others at their various centres in order to reduce poverty because the percentage now is very little. The community is not feeling the impact at all because the problem is too numerous and the resources are very little.
Will you now say that lack of love for one another is the root cause of all these problems confronting the society?
Love does not just come; people preach love, people serve love. When we were growing up, we attended free school. Our fathers had the intention of sending us to school and the government took charge of their responsibility and we were given free education, and that is why I will always pray for the soul of late Alhaji Lateef Jakande to rest in peace, to be in the highest Al-Jannah. It was during his tenure as governor of Lagos State that we got free and qualitative education. What has the other governments after him done? Public schools have been abandoned; many of them have deteriorated to the extent that you don’t pray for your children to attend public schools, and the people that are supposed to serve public schools are the ones establishing private schools. Do you think they will want their private schools not to prosper? And the only way they can do that is to make sure the public schools are not functioning so that people will be forced to take their children to private schools.
The people who are supposed to give us electricity are the ones bringing power generating sets into our country. How will their companies excel if we have a power supply, who will buy power-generating sets? So the only way their companies can excel is to make sure they sabotage our electricity supply so that we don’t have power supply and be forced to buy power generating sets. The people that are supposed to provide the country with airlines that will be flying at reasonable fare are the ones that introduced the private airlines and that is why we are in a mess. We are slaves under foreign expatriates. Our people gave them money, they, in turn, use the money to establish businesses we think are being funded by them but being funded by our people. They give our graduates stringent conditions that our graduates cannot meet up with, and if you must meet up with it you are a slave under them. We are the architects of our own problems. When love is missing this is the result we will keep getting.
With the plight Nigerians are being subjected to on a daily basis, some people are clamouring for the disintegration of this country. Do you think this is the way out?
God is love and He is for unity! Those that are clamouring for a breakup are doing so because they have seen that the essence of coming together in the first place is not there, once a Yoruba man sees a Hausa man as his enemy, the Hausa man sees Igbo man as his enemy. So what’s the essence of unity? This is the reason why those that are clamouring for a break-up are doing so. But I will not support a break-up but restructuring. We should come to the round-table, identify the problems and provide solutions together. We did not meet this country this way; it is our responsibility in this generation to make sure we have a Nigeria that we all dream of. Let’s take it up as our responsibility. We are more educated than our fathers, so what’s the essence of our education if we cannot provide solutions?
We should come together, take up responsibility, face the problems head-on and provide solutions. This is what we should be thinking of, not separation. What we need now is restructuring. We should all identify the dark areas in our country which is the law that is guiding us. It has become known to everybody that this is not the kind of law that should guide us as a country. This law was provided by the military for us as a civilian nation. It is wrong! We claimed to be running a democracy and the law we are using is provided by an autocratic government. We are using an autocratic law to run a democratic government and we think that it will work. Democracy is the government of the people run by the people and for the people. What that means is that people made their laws by themselves for themselves. That is the area we should correct. We should come together to make our own law for ourselves and that law will be favourable to us because we made it.
Let’s go through our constitution one by one and correct where we think is not favourable to us, then we will now have a law produced by us and for us. That is the first thing we should do and the people in charge of this government that made this law are sabotaging this effort because they want us to be their slaves. That law was made by them so that they can enslave us and they never desired freedom for us. Each time we crave for a law to be made by us is like we are challenging them. What that meant to them is like we want to take our destiny into our hands and they don’t want that to happen. They want to dictate our collective destiny for us. It is the lower class against the upper and higher class. It is a mistake when you say you are an enemy of Hausa or an enemy of Igbo.
The poor among the Yorubas, the Hausas, or the Igbos should be fighting against the rich among themselves. I think that is how it’s supposed to be. The rich are seeing themselves as one; they don’t see religion or tribalism dividing them. But we, the poor are looking at ourselves as different people. We divide ourselves by religion and ethnic tribalism. Tell me who is marrying who today? Ajimobi’s son married Ganduje’s daughter. So you want us to disintegrate. How is that possible when the rich are marrying themselves and they ask you to fight?
The same people that ask you to fight Hausa sanctions marriage between their sons and Hausa ladies and you think they are supporting you. Tinubu celebrated his birthday at where? In Kano! Why is it that we poor people cannot think deep, is it poverty that is affecting our thinking faculty? A Yoruba leader went and celebrated his birthday in the North and they asked you to be fighting. Where is the sense in that? And the same Hausa people that you said are terrorizing Yoruba land, a leader from Yoruba land went to the North to celebrate his birthday and they did not kill him but rather celebrated with him. Do you know how many people went to Kano by road to celebrate with him and nobody was attacked but if you want to go for personal business they will attack you?
How many times have they bombed their campaign ground or kidnapped somebody when they are campaigning? It is only when the poor want to celebrate and enjoy their lives that they will be attacked. Where are those people that attacked the poor when the rich are holding programmes? So this is the question we need to proffer answers to. The situation is the rich against the poor in this country.
So we, the Muslims, should create more awareness that we are one regardless of our tribe or religious affiliation. We should not allow religion to divide this country but rather use religion to unite ourselves. Let the Igbo Muslim celebrates the Hausa Muslim, and let the Hausa Muslim celebrates the Yoruba Muslim. From there, we take it to the government, take it to other areas and we have solution to our problems instead of using religions to separate ourselves and the other solutions will fall in place.
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