By Akeem Lasisi
– An excerpt from Missioner of TRUTH, a developing biography of renowned Islamic preacher, Sheikh Muyideen Ajani Bello
Ghosts in Saki Market
Now, it was time to work. Our man had acquired so much knowledge that he was burning with the zeal to work. He had the zeal to teach, while also advancing the lectures he continued to deliver.
His first major employment was at Ansardeen Muslim College, Saki, where he taught Islamic Knowledge and Biology. He was automatically qualified to handle Islamic religious studies. While he could not be said to be a specialist in Biology, he was taken through sciences generally when in the teachers training college. Besides, the school authorities discovered he had passion for the subject too.
He recalls that he really enjoyed teaching at the school. He was ever prepared for classes, with his lesson notes ready, while he also loved using teaching aids. Because he would not want to disappoint himself when bright students asked unexpected questions, Mr. Bello always read well ahead of lessons. He became more enamoured to deliver in class when he watched the way his pupils grew intellectually and morally. But the Saki episode of his life was not going to last forever. Indeed, his stay was going to be shorter than he had envisaged.
This is the story: His pupils observed that he loved to frequent a popular night market in the Oke Ogun town, in the northern part of Oyo State. They advised him to do less of this because, according to them, ghosts also visited the market at night. The pupils painted the picture so vividly that they said some people who had died in the area not only went there to buy things at night, some of them also had shops there.
On this, the cleric does not mince words. He says, “That was what made me leave Saki in 1968. After all, there was no light in the town as of that time.”
Well, that was a great time in Nigeria. A literate person could leave job at will because there were many others waiting to choose from. It was a time that a graduate had employers waiting for him even before he competed his programme. It was a golden era that white collar jobs chased different cadres of school leavers.
That was why the ghosts-scared Mr. Bello had no problem getting another teaching appointment at Abeokuta Grammar School in the Ogun State capital. The job there was a bit more expansive than what happened in Saki. On settling than at Abeokuta Gramms, the chief imam there enjoined him to join their mosque to help in reciting the Quran to the people, especially before the Jumat Service on Fridays.
He had no problem doing this. And life was also going to be good and promising in Abeokuta. But something brought up the fear syndrome again. A brother of his, who was living in the town, urged their father to discourage Muyideen Bello from staying in Abeokuta. According to the ‘learned brother’, Odo Ogun (the Ogun River) was a dangerous spot as, he added, some people were fond of killing innocent folk there.
“That was how I left Abeokuta again,” Alfa Muyideen Bello said.
