By Segun Adewale in Bauchi
The Management of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi has warned that it will not condone any act of religious intolerance and disunity among the University community.
The warning was given by the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Ibrahim Garba, while inaugurating an Implementation of Committee on how to appropriately ensure the two campuses of the University remained calm and peaceful.
It was a move to further promote religious harmony among the various religious sects, functioning within the campuses.
The Committee was inaugurated on Thursday by the Vice Chancellor Prof Garba, at the Council Chambers, Gubi Permanent Campus.
Speaking while inaugurating the Committee, the VC explained that, “The genesis that led to the recommendation for the setting up of this Committee has been clearly stated by the Registrar of the University. And the membership that were so called by the Registrar, the Management selected the membership of this Committee after a lot of thoughtful considerations.”
According to him,,”The terms of reference, as the Registrar says, is simple. Three terms of reference, majorly advising Management on how to operationalize the recommendations that came from a response of the interaction of various stakeholders in the Department of State Security. (DSS).
He added that, “Reason why the State Security took, is because the matter was getting beyond the borders of ATBU and it was attracting more positive and negative national attention. And of course, you know that there is no way any responsible government will allow this kind of matter to snowball beyond the limit that it has already gone.”
He further said that,”Then to develop code of conduct for all religious activities in the University, in line with external regulations, and then the Committee is at liberty to make appropriate recommendations incidental to its assignment. The Committee has a two-week window within which to submit its report.”
The VC added, “And on behalf of the University management, I want to use this opportunity to pronounce that the Committee is hereby inaugurated. But while the Committee is carrying out its assignment,”
“I also want to make it very clear that until the outcome, since we don’t have clear modalities on how to implement these five recommendations, our two mosques will only be dedicated to the five daily prayers and the normal Jummaat prayers. No any other activity will be conducted until the Committee gives us a recommendation clearly on how to go about the recommendations raised by the DSS,” he added.
He declared,”I want to make it very clear to everyone who is attending this particular exercise. Let’s exercise patience. Two weeks is not too much time that we have not waited. Let’s wait for the Committee to come and recommend which I believe will also be in the spirit of this reconciliation that the DSS has been midwife.”
“I also want to use this opportunity to most sincerely appreciate everybody, all the stakeholders, for your patience, for your understanding, and for the courage you exhibited throughout this very unfortunate incident. And I also want to use the opportunity to sincerely appreciate the Department of State Security for the timely intervention and also the timely recommendations that they gave to this University by addressing this matter. I want to urge all parties to embrace the spirit of patience, understanding, that we work with a multi-dimensional, multicultural, and multi-religious society,” he added.
He stressed that,”That the God that brought us this society in the context that we find itself has a reason for doing what he did. And we should not be seized to be challenged that reality. With this God, I want most sincerely thank everyone for your time, particularly members of the press for finding the time to come and address this occasion. Thank you very much. I wish all of us best.”
Earlier, Registrar of the University, Kabiru Garba Aminu, said that, “There was a letter to Vice Chancellor, from the Tijjaniyya Group, for permission to conduct their activities in the University mosque.
The Vice Chancellor constituted a committee under my chairmanship. We sat down and made recommendations to the management for the allocation of land to the Group, which the committee of management approved. Because, the Shura, did not approve that they should be using the mosque for their other activities. That is why we now agreed that a land should be allocated. I’m sure everybody is aware of what happened, what led the uproar that came up two days ago.”
He added that,”I received a call from the Department of State Services, myself, the Chairman of Shura, the Chairman of TIMSA, MSSN, and some student officials of the TIMSA and MSSN. We were there with them and we spent almost five hours meeting with them. At the end of the meeting, we resolved on five points which were recommended to the University to implement by the Department of State Services.”
He listed the resolutions,”One, that all religious sects should be allowed to use the mosque, the designated mosque in the University to conduct their activities. Two, that because of this, the land that was allocated to the Tijjaniyya Group was withdrawn. Because initially the land was allocated because of resistance for them to use the University mosque for their own activities. So since they had been given the access, so the land was withdrawn.”
“Three, that the leadership of the union, the association, that’s Shura and the MSSN, should be restructured in such a way that all aspects within the University should be represented. And that the appointment of the Imam of the University should now be handled by the University. And then lastly, that the University should invoke the resolution, the regulation governing the activities of all religious activities in the campuses to ensure that we have a peaceful coexistence.”
The Registrar added that,”The resolution was forwarded to the management of the University and it ordered for a stakeholders, which sat down and deliberate, at the end of the meeting with the management, the management now decided for us to implement or to come out with regulations, to operationalize the resolution of these five points recommended to the university.”
