Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido

MSSN 33rd National Amir (2009-2012)

lamidomabudi@gmail.com

Muslims across Nigeria are still celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN). In few weeks to come, the grand finale is going to be conducted in Abuja. The Nigerian President, Alhaji Bola Ahmad Tinubu, GCFR, as well as several Muslim governors and other leaders and dignitaries are expected to join the Grand Patron of the Society, His Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Saad Abubakar CFR, mni, at the historic event insha Allah. This moment of celebration provides an appropriate time to reflect on the society’s contributions, impact, challenges and future.

Alhamdulillah! We thank Allah for making us part of this historic moment; the period of celebrating 70 years of our dear organization, the largest Muslim youth organization in Africa; the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN). MSSN started in the 1950s as a small group of young Muslim students who were determined to safeguard their faith, assert their religious rights, empower themselves intellectually and contribute to the development of their communities and nation.

For 70 years now, the Society has remained determined and focused on this dual mandate on and off academic campuses. First, it has succeeded in encouraging millions of young Nigeran Muslims to vigorously pursue academic excellence in various modern disciplines across Nigerian institutions and beyond. This has led to producing Professors, Doctors of Philosophy (PhDs), Masters holders, degree holders, as well as professionals like medical doctors, engineers, accountants, nurses, and, in short, all disciplines. In relation to the second mandate of safeguarding and enhancing faith, MSSN has remained a resort of Muslim students, serving not only as a strong shield from deviant beliefs and heretical ideologies, but also as a source of sound training in faith, moral uprightness, and religious consciousness. With these two priorities, MSSN has, for seven decades, continued to produce for the country professionally excellent, morally sound, ethically upright, nationally patriotic, spiritually conscious and religiously dedicated professionals and experts who continue to distinguish themselves in various fields of leadership and other national assignments.

MSSN has become a force to be reckoned with and a reliable intellectual body to resort to for spiritual, intellectual, political, economic and socio-cultural guidance. In the last 70 years, MSSN has changed the cause of history in Nigeria. It has become a strong and dynamic organization that continues to produce sound men and women who are Muslims in faith, values and actions, and at the same time patriotic citizens who are always ready to make sacrifices for the betterment of their nation.  It has produced millions of conscious Muslims in all parts of the country who have grown to become influential scholars, intellectuals, professionals, political leaders, traditional rulers, successful business persons, technocrats and other responsible citizens. 

Today, if Nigeria is regarded as “The Giant of Africa” then we can safely say that the MSSN is the “Giant of Islam in Nigeria”. It is the largest student and youth organization in Africa. One could only imagine what would have happened to the faith and morals of millions of Muslim students in Nigerian educational institutions if MSSN were not founded, nurtured, developed and sustained. Only Allah knows the religious, ideological, intellectual and moral damages that would have been inflicted on Muslim students undergoing western-style education in the country. But Alhamdulillah, MSSN has influenced the direction of curricula in Nigerian educational institutions from primary to university levels, making them largely suit the priorities of the Muslim communities. It has, at least, provided a well-crafted programme of complementing the designated, formal school curricula, with a concurrent Islamic extra curriculum that provides Muslim students with Islamic training that safeguards them from the negative influences of the western-style educational system; filling-in the blank spaces and correcting unislamic and anti-Islamic contents of the boko curricula. It has significantly checkmated immorality on campuses. It was the MSSN that successfully championed the introduction of descent Islamic dress and the approval of hijab for female Muslim students on academic campuses, extending it also to the NYSC orientation camps, to health institutions and various other workplaces.

MSSN has succeeded also in developing an agenda for Muslim education, providing guidance and counselling for young students on important areas of studies. Through its extra-mural lessons, refresher courses and on-campus tutorials, MSSN has built for the Ummah a strong body of visionary intellectuals who are serious with their studies, focused in their carriers, conscious of their faith, and committed to societal development. Through its various lectures, symposia, ta’leem sessions, publications and other guidance and counselling activities, it has instilled in the young Muslims the love for academic excellence, the penchant for reading and writing, the aspiration towards professionalism and the commitment towards life-long-learning. Every MSSN member is familiar with the long-held slogan of continues learning that has become the second motto of the Society; that is the oft-repeated saying that learning is a continues endeavor that begins from the cradle and only ends at the door of the grave. This has made MSSN members full time friends of books and never-retiring learners. From secondary schools to higher educational institutions, MSSN is always available for students to provide them with all the required dosage of spiritual vaccines and intellectual nutrition, sufficient enough to make them meaningful citizens that are sophisticated enough to skillfully face all the challenges of life. It trains them on religion, develops them in skills, empowers them with knowledge, molds them in character, and equips them with powerful leadership coaching. 

Usually, ordinary University students earn a single degree in Nigerian Universities in their four or five academic sessions. However, Muslim students who become regular participants of MSSN programmes end with two “degrees”; one awarded by the University, and the second informally “awarded” by the MSSN. But MSSN officials end up with three or more “degrees”; (1) the statutory academic degrees, (2) the “degrees” earned through MSSN programmes (3) the “degree” in applied leadership and management. In essence, if Nigerian Universities award degrees in learning and character, MSSN upgrades the degrees in learning, character, faith, morality and leadership. It makes students graduate with skills, faith, and morals “rather than just degrees”!

Throughout its history, MSSN has been an indomitable force that has stood firm in checkmating all the forces of disbelief and immorality on Nigerian academic campuses and beyond. It has built a conducive atmosphere for the smooth running of religious and ethical academic life on Nigerian campuses. Whether it was the hostile missionary agenda with which western-style education came to Nigeria; godless-Marxist-communism that penetrated campuses in the 1970s; the anti-Sharīʿah and anti-Muslim clandestine maneuvers that were carefully crafted and planned to be smuggled into the Nigerian constitution during the constituent assembly in the late 70s; the  Anti-Sahaba-radical-Shi’ism that was wrapped in the well packaged Iranian revolution in the late 70s and early 80s; the aggressive Islamophobic campaigns that followed the global agendas cooked within the contexts of the “Clash of Civilizations” and “End of History” mantras; the “War  on Islam” that was tagged “War on Terror” in the early 2000s and used as a strategy to kill Islam and demoralize Muslims globally; the radical campaigns of new atheism and deism that came to be propagated through various digital means after 9/11; or even the  confusions that came up in the name  of Boko Haram which caused a lot of embarrassment and disgrace for Muslims in Nigeria; in all these and other circumstances, MSSN has always remained energetically present and unshakable, providing sophisticated shield for Muslim students and youths. It has remained a resilient organization with strong internal shock-absorbers and external safeguards that always protect it from the threats of dismantlement and diversion from its core objectives, philosophy and mandate.

MSSN has in the last 70 years contributed significantly towards building Nigeria’s religious ecosystem, in addition to playing leading roles in designing Nigeria’s social, economic and political architecture. There is hardly any area of our national development that the impact of the MSSN is not positively felt.  MSSN means a lot to individual Muslims, to Muslim families, to Islamic groups, to Muslim communities, to Muslim traditional and political leaders, and to the entire Muslim Ummah in Nigeria. In every single Islamic organization, wherever it operates, whatever its area of operation, whatever its scope of operation, irrespective of its priorities, most of the leaders of that organization were once trained under the MSSN as leaders or at least active members. MSSN gave birth to the Muslim Corpers Association of Nigeria (MCAN), Muslim Sisters Organization (MSO), Federation of Muslim Women Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN), National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations (NACOMYO), Islamic Medical Association of Nigeria (IMAN), Muslim Lawyers Association of Nigeria (MULAN) and a lot of other professional organizations. But as a caring mother, MSSN not only gave birth to these organizations, but it breast-fed them, nurtured them and continues to nourish them with well trained professionals who lead those organizations. MSSN, in this regard, contributes significantly to national development by producing ethically grounded, morally sound, professional skillful and God-conscious, patriotic experts in virtually every single field needed for the development of the country.

At the international level, MSSN has been instrumental to the formation of so many international Muslim youth organizations including the Muslim Students Association (MSA) of North America, International Federation of Muslim Youth Organizations (IFSO), the Ghana Muslim Students Association (GMSA) among others. It has maintained close contact with these international bodies through visitations and attendance of programmes. MSSN members studying abroad have also continued to be active members of student and youth organizations, serving for them as members, leaders and resource persons.

As we celebrate the 70 years of this organization, it is important that we reflect on its contributions, x-ray its challenges, analyze its potentials and try to see how we can contribute towards taking it to the next, better level. I congratulate the millions of present and past members and leaders of this great organization and pray that its good legacies will not only be maintained but also improved upon, so that future generations will benefit from a better, more organized, more impactful and more organized MSSN than what we have today

Amir Lamido 

Gombe 

06/10/24