Excitement over unusual ram gift

Yesterday, what started like a child’s play at ram market behind The Muslim Congress (TMC), Dawah Centre, Ijeshatedo, Lagos State, turned a reality.

Like the late business mogul and winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 Presidential election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, who reportedly signed for a man an amount of money on a piece of paper and the man was paid in a bank, yesterday, a little known Executive Director of Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation (ZSF), Imam Abdullahi Shuaib, wrote, signed on the palm of a man (name withheld) and told him to go to a nearby market to collect a ram worth the amount he wrote.

The man, for the fun of seeing someone reliving the memory of the late Abiola’s exemplary humanitarian gesture, dashed to the place. Alas, he got the surprise of his life!

“Go there and pick any ram of your choice,” AbdulKareem Muhammad Raji, popularly known as Abu Abu, Head of TMC Ram Business, told the man.

Still in disbelief, the man picked his choice ram, got a receipt and went away.

“Just like that!” he exclaimed. “Yes,” one of the attendants replied him.

The scenario drama occured during at the monthly Fiqh Forum at the TMC Dawah Centre. The usually crowded gathering is a forum where deep understandings of Islamic jurisprudence are being taught.

“This is another history being made,” Mr Wasiu Amoo, a lawyer remarked. Amoo, the National Public Relation Officer of the Muslim Lawyers Association of Nigeria (MULAN), described the scenario as “unbelievable.”

“I thought it was a joke when he showed me his palm, now I see Nigeria is blessed with people who can do like MKO Abiola. As a legal person, a paper can be a legal document, but what do we say about this … palm? You cannot cut his wrist for evidence sake, but these people just let go like that. That man must be a credible person. I am proud to be a Muslim and a Nigerian,” he said.

How did it happen? The Nation asked the man, “I approached Imam Abdullahi Shuaib to exchange pleasantries. After exchanging tasleem (Islamic greetings), he immediately requested a pen and a piece of paper; before I could get one, he beckoned: “Don’t bother getting a paper, give me your hand,” and he wrote on my palm: ‘Please release now, N65,000.’ And he appended his signature.

“Immediately I got there, one of the attendants directed me to their boss who was holding a meeting. He (Abu Abu) usherd me in and read the note on my palm. After, he said: “Go there and pick any ram of your choice.” I still thought it was ‘a joke taken too far’ until I got the receipt and took the ram out of the place.”

“I wasn’t really surprised at the gesture, having seen on television and read in newspapers the humanitarian gestures of Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation, which the man heads, but this was not planned for. Besides, the manner the ram seller attended to the “note” still amused me. Imam Shuaib deserves a national honour for this singular act,” he said.

 

 

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