Our students refused to protest against Emir Sanusi — Prince Ajibola

Crescent University is the first Islamic University in Nigeria. What would you say is the objective behind its establishment? The objective is clearly to ensure that our Muslim brothers and sisters are given the same advantage people of other religions and faith enjoy in terms of education, particularly, in the area of academic development. Our […]

Crescent University is the first Islamic University in Nigeria. What would you say is the objective behind its establishment?
The objective is clearly to ensure that our Muslim brothers and sisters are given the same advantage people of other religions and faith enjoy in terms of education, particularly, in the area of academic development. Our aims are to be proactively engaged in ensuring that regardless of place of birth, religion, ethnicity, a youth is given not only sound education but equally good morals.
We are trying to let Nigerians know that education without moral upbringing is the cause of the many setbacks we now have in our country, in terms of corruption, stealing and other fraudulent practices.
Incidentally, we have been working so hard such that we are able to get students across the 36 states of the federation.

To what extent would you say your students and graduates are living up to the standards the university is etched on?
Alhamdulilah (Praise God)! We are delighted that our students and graduates are doing well first of all, in their respective places of works and as post-graduates students in other universities. We have so many stories of our students demonstrating to the public that they have been well educated and well discipline at Crescent University.
We have the story of one of them who went to Robert Gordon University, Scotland. She went there for her post graduate (Msc) programme. The school noticed that she was regularly attending classes and she happened to be of good character. They were very surprised and asked about where she had her first degree and she told them Crescent University with a First Class.
Fascinatingly, she was able to repeat similar feat at Scotland as she left the school with Distinction.
There was another incident in Kano State where our students were invited to join a group of rioters. They refused to do so, telling the organizers that Crescent University has admonished them never to get involved in any terrorist or violent gathering or protest and therefore they will not participate. This was when the new Emir Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II was being installed and some people were protesting. Our students refused to join them and the governor of that state informed us of the glorious practice of our students.

In terms of funding and infrastructural development, how will you say this institution has fared?
Well, funding the university has not been easy at all, particularly, putting in place the buildings, power and water supply and other complementary needs. One has to look for help from well-meaning Nigerians. We do recognize the effort of so many people who have come to our aid. But we are still ensuring that we meet the needs of our students, lots of whom come from both northern and southern parts of Nigeria.

There are people who have called for the involvement of TETFund in funding private universities, what is your position on this?
Naturally, one would expect much from government regarding the development of private universities because we are complementing its efforts. We are doing our best; unfortunately, the government in most cases does not recognize what we are doing or even help us. Instead, they are very much interested in asking for tax, tenement rates, building permits, building plans and all those things involving payments. Those constitute a lot of setbacks for the developments of these universities. The students who are on scholarship are mostly from the North. We don’t have, apart from Lagos, scholarship students from the southern parts of the country. We hope the trend would be reversed in the days ahead.