Category: Friday

Monologue

IT has been asserted severally in this column that the similitude of column writing in a national newspaper on a weekly basis is like pregnancy in the womb of an expectant mother. When the pregnancy reaches advanced stage, its carrier can hardly have a moment of respite until she has been delivered of a bouncing baby whose cry will ginger her into consciousness.

 

The problem of a columnist

The problem of a quality columnist is not a dearth of ideas but a deluge of them. No columnist of worth will ever be in want of vocabulary to use in   presenting his thoughts and ideas to his readers. A strong linguistic background and many years of experience in reading and writing would have taken proper care of that. Thus, a worthy columnist faces problem only when it comes to choosing the subject of his writing. Such is the weekly intellectual agony which any newspaper or magazine columnist, anywhere in the world, is compelled to pass through from time to time.

 

Dilemma of a columnist

While a columnist is busy ruminating on an issue to write about, several other issues will spring up and start throwing themselves to him torrentially in such a way that he may easily falls into  a dilemma or even confusion.

That was the case with yours sincerely. The topic was not at all, in the cluster of subjects competing for consideration in this column. But usually, in the melee of searching the brain for a subject that will attract the attention of readers and quench their intellectual thirst, an experienced columnist should be able to push his God-given skill to the front burner to meet the momentary taste of his readers.

 

Skill as a hobby

Ability to speak or write intellectually is a gift from Allah which grows into a skill over   time. And it becomes much easier when such a skill becomes a hobby. Speaking, no matter how eloquently done, cannot be as important as getting audience. So is writing. A speaker can be classified as an orator only by the audience that listens to him always and benefit from the richness of his speech. Experienced radio and television broadcasters can attest to this. In the same vein, an author or a columnist can be celebrated or denigrated only by his readers. Any writer who takes his readers for granted, therefore, does so at his own risk. Such a writer may not be qualified for an author or a columnist. The topic in this column was chosen extemporaneously out of the miscellany of others that were earnestly putting themselves forward for prompt attention.

The topic is more about the modern virtue which gives the modern man a worthy life to live. That virtue is education that serves as the master key to the door of knowledge. Without knowledge, human life would have been worthless. Today, the main symbol of knowledge is the citadel called University. The master key to that citadel is not certificate as mostly misconceived, especially in Nigeria, but the use to which it is humbly put.

 

Home of knowledge

Abeokuta, the traditional home of knowledge and culture in Nigeria, was agog last Saturday, October 20. That is probably another day on which a famous Yoruba adage: “every day is like a festival”,  wias further ascertained with its deep-rooted meaning. And that is the destination of  cruising yacht of writing called ‘The Message’ Column. And the anchorage is Crescent University, Abeokuta (CUAB) where morality is the permanent rule. That is the place where a miscellany of citations were read when some great Nigerians were conferred with doctoral degrees  (Honoris Causa) in some notable areas of human endeavour. Dr. S. O. Babalola is one of those conferred and the expected citations read at that occasion, in respect of person is of particular interest to this columnist.

 

An alternative citation

Life is a school in which many apartments are available. If you are lucky to study in one department, do not assume that you have acquired all the needed education with which to survive the oddities of life. It is one thing to pass through a school. It is another to allow the same school to pass through you. That is the real essence of any education that will culminate in useful knowledge.

The unassuming Octogenarian gentleman popularly known as Dr. S. O. Babalola has been on stage in Nigeria’s amphitheatre of positive actions for more than 50 years. Yet, he still surges ahead to the satisfactory comfort of those around him, home and abroad. If I were in a position to present this exemplary man’s citation at any public event, below is what I would have liked to present:

“This is a citation and not a summary of a biography. It is the citation of one of Nigeria’s iconic leaders who is eminently qualified to be cited vertically from the pack of his horizontal peers. This citation is unconventional. Unlike many other citations, the emphasis here is neither on the date and place of birth nor on the schools attended and the certificates obtained. The emphasis here is rather on a citation from which most people, present here or absent, will learn how to keep the track of life without falling by the way side.

If, on any occasion, every citation is about date of birth, schools attended or wives married the day will be tastelessly dotted with sheer rhetoric and heavily clouded by a boring monotony. The world is fast changing with dynamism and anybody who refuses to join the train of change before it leaves the station will be left behind to do so on another day.

 

The Cornerstone

“While man’s desires and aspirations stir, he cannot choose but err; yet, in his erring journey through the night, instinctively, he travels towards the light”. By Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

The above poem is the parable of a rejected stone that has turned out to be the cornerstone of the house. Those who can still remember the history of Prophet Ismail, (the first son of Prophet Ibrahim) should be able to recall that the son was once ejected with his mother, from their family home and banished to a desert asylum at a place now called Makkah.  Today, we can all see the outcome of that episode in the everlasting uniqueness of Hajj as the fifth pillar of Islam. As it was in the primordial time, so it is in the contemporary time”.

 

Profile of an Icon

“We have a man in our midst here today, whose rising profile has enabled us to know that the purpose of human life is not just to live comfortably and be happy. Beneath many days of happy mood are some quiet nights of sleeplessness and tears of sorrow. That is the secret of human experience which should serve as the first lesson to be learnt in a citation. Dr Babalola, OON, is a man who combines humility with conscience to form an identity by which he is generally known. That is an identity that clearly distinguishes a man of honour from men of wealth. We should all know that humility based on conscience is the most active cursor of piety.

 

His rising profile

Perhaps, if Dr Babalola had not exprienced rejection in certain quarters, at a stage in his life’s odyssey, he would not have emerged as the President of the Muslim Ummah of the South West Nigeria (MUSWEN) which is the umbrella body for all Muslim organisations in the region. And if he had not become the President of MUSWEN, he would probably not have risen to the post of Deputy President-General (South) of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). With the latter post, he is the paramount leader of all the Muslims in the entire Southern Nigeria by the grace of Allah. What could have made this possible besides destiny through the guidance of Allah?

Now, if, in the course of reading his citation, we trace the background of this man to any school or madrasah he attended at the early age of his life, what lesson are we to learn from that? If we describe him as one of the foremost but quiet philanthropists currently in Nigeria, and list the chain of his philanthropic gestures, what uniqueness can we derive from that for him? If we say here that he is married with children and he gave those children qualitative education how does that make his life different from the lives of his peers? All those are a common feature of common citations often presented publicly, sometimes, to the boredom of the audience.

 

The difference he makes

What actually makes conspicuous difference in this man’s life, which only a few people are able to perceive and focus, is his ability to identify, early in life, the factors of equanimity in human life.

That is the guiding principle adopted by Dr Babalola who rose from the dungeon of obscurity to a very high pedestal of limelight in integrity despite all odds. But he added an addendum of his own to that principle. That addendum which has become a template for those who are willing to learn is as follows:

“To be happy in life you must make others happy. And to live in peace, you must ventilate a peaceful environment for others. Happiness is based on peace and peace from man to man is reciprocal”.

Thus, for Dr Babalola, rising to become a towering leader was not by fortuitous. He had painstakingly studied the qualities of a good leader and he has patiently imbibed those qualities through self-discipline and divinely guided inspiration.

 

Qualities of good leadership

Anybody who cares to know the qualities of good leadership which form the ladder that took this great man to this stage of his life will discover those qualities to be as follows:

Meaningful focus; interminable patience; relentless confidence; untamable courage; inspired innovations; natural humility; irrepressible endurance; insubordinate assiduity; divinely-guided self-motivation; impeccable resilience; enviable transparency; unequalled generosity; plausible accountability; unfaultable authenticity; intractable decisiveness; absolute contentment and, of course, unpolluted conscience.

 

Question

Now, which of these qualities cannot be found in this man? And which of them should not be emulated by young men and women who are aspiring to be leaders tomorrow? This reminds one of a stanza in the poem of an Arab poet thus:

“He is not a man whoever relies on the achievements of his parents to exhibit pride; a man indeed is he who can stand out of the pack with his head raised, and say: here I am today, despite all odds of life”.

Today, at the peak of his ladder of excellence, Dr Babalola has become a school for those who want to study the ladder of life and how to mount it to the top. You can now see why a citation like this is said to be unconventional.  In modern time, this is what a citation should be to enable future leaders to learn from it in preparation for the mantle of leadership.

 

Conclusion

This alternative citation is hereby concluded with a prayer that was once offered poetically by an American woman (J. Walch) who dedicated her entire life to the service of mankind upon which she died. That prayer has since become a daily rhyme for Dr Babalola in words and in action. It goes thus:

“God make my life a little staff, upon which the weak may rest, that what so health and wealth I have may serve my neighbours best”.

We pray Allah to preserve his life and imbue him with continued sound health and guidance, that he may serve humanity for long in good spirit. Amen.

IT has been asserted severally in this column that the similitude of column writing in a national newspaper on a weekly basis is like pregnancy in the womb of an expectant mother. When the pregnancy reaches advanced stage, its carrier can hardly have a moment of respite until she has been delivered of a bouncing baby whose cry will ginger her into consciousness.

 

The problem of a columnist

The problem of a quality columnist is not a dearth of ideas but a deluge of them. No columnist of worth will ever be in want of vocabulary to use in   presenting his thoughts and ideas to his readers. A strong linguistic background and many years of experience in reading and writing would have taken proper care of that. Thus, a worthy columnist faces problem only when it comes to choosing the subject of his writing. Such is the weekly intellectual agony which any newspaper or magazine columnist, anywhere in the world, is compelled to pass through from time to time.

 

Dilemma of a columnist

While a columnist is busy ruminating on an issue to write about, several other issues will spring up and start throwing themselves to him torrentially in such a way that he may easily falls into  a dilemma or even confusion.

That was the case with yours sincerely. The topic was not at all, in the cluster of subjects competing for consideration in this column. But usually, in the melee of searching the brain for a subject that will attract the attention of readers and quench their intellectual thirst, an experienced columnist should be able to push his God-given skill to the front burner to meet the momentary taste of his readers.

 

Skill as a hobby

Ability to speak or write intellectually is a gift from Allah which grows into a skill over   time. And it becomes much easier when such a skill becomes a hobby. Speaking, no matter how eloquently done, cannot be as important as getting audience. So is writing. A speaker can be classified as an orator only by the audience that listens to him always and benefit from the richness of his speech. Experienced radio and television broadcasters can attest to this. In the same vein, an author or a columnist can be celebrated or denigrated only by his readers. Any writer who takes his readers for granted, therefore, does so at his own risk. Such a writer may not be qualified for an author or a columnist. The topic in this column was chosen extemporaneously out of the miscellany of others that were earnestly putting themselves forward for prompt attention.

The topic is more about the modern virtue which gives the modern man a worthy life to live. That virtue is education that serves as the master key to the door of knowledge. Without knowledge, human life would have been worthless. Today, the main symbol of knowledge is the citadel called University. The master key to that citadel is not certificate as mostly misconceived, especially in Nigeria, but the use to which it is humbly put.

 

Home of knowledge

Abeokuta, the traditional home of knowledge and culture in Nigeria, was agog last Saturday, October 20. That is probably another day on which a famous Yoruba adage: “every day is like a festival”,  wias further ascertained with its deep-rooted meaning. And that is the destination of  cruising yacht of writing called ‘The Message’ Column. And the anchorage is Crescent University, Abeokuta (CUAB) where morality is the permanent rule. That is the place where a miscellany of citations were read when some great Nigerians were conferred with doctoral degrees  (Honoris Causa) in some notable areas of human endeavour. Dr. S. O. Babalola is one of those conferred and the expected citations read at that occasion, in respect of person is of particular interest to this columnist.

 

An alternative citation

Life is a school in which many apartments are available. If you are lucky to study in one department, do not assume that you have acquired all the needed education with which to survive the oddities of life. It is one thing to pass through a school. It is another to allow the same school to pass through you. That is the real essence of any education that will culminate in useful knowledge.

The unassuming Octogenarian gentleman popularly known as Dr. S. O. Babalola has been on stage in Nigeria’s amphitheatre of positive actions for more than 50 years. Yet, he still surges ahead to the satisfactory comfort of those around him, home and abroad. If I were in a position to present this exemplary man’s citation at any public event, below is what I would have liked to present:

“This is a citation and not a summary of a biography. It is the citation of one of Nigeria’s iconic leaders who is eminently qualified to be cited vertically from the pack of his horizontal peers. This citation is unconventional. Unlike many other citations, the emphasis here is neither on the date and place of birth nor on the schools attended and the certificates obtained. The emphasis here is rather on a citation from which most people, present here or absent, will learn how to keep the track of life without falling by the way side.

If, on any occasion, every citation is about date of birth, schools attended or wives married the day will be tastelessly dotted with sheer rhetoric and heavily clouded by a boring monotony. The world is fast changing with dynamism and anybody who refuses to join the train of change before it leaves the station will be left behind to do so on another day.

 

The Cornerstone

“While man’s desires and aspirations stir, he cannot choose but err; yet, in his erring journey through the night, instinctively, he travels towards the light”. By Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

The above poem is the parable of a rejected stone that has turned out to be the cornerstone of the house. Those who can still remember the history of Prophet Ismail, (the first son of Prophet Ibrahim) should be able to recall that the son was once ejected with his mother, from their family home and banished to a desert asylum at a place now called Makkah.  Today, we can all see the outcome of that episode in the everlasting uniqueness of Hajj as the fifth pillar of Islam. As it was in the primordial time, so it is in the contemporary time”.

 

Profile of an Icon

“We have a man in our midst here today, whose rising profile has enabled us to know that the purpose of human life is not just to live comfortably and be happy. Beneath many days of happy mood are some quiet nights of sleeplessness and tears of sorrow. That is the secret of human experience which should serve as the first lesson to be learnt in a citation. Dr Babalola, OON, is a man who combines humility with conscience to form an identity by which he is generally known. That is an identity that clearly distinguishes a man of honour from men of wealth. We should all know that humility based on conscience is the most active cursor of piety.

 

His rising profile

Perhaps, if Dr Babalola had not exprienced rejection in certain quarters, at a stage in his life’s odyssey, he would not have emerged as the President of the Muslim Ummah of the South West Nigeria (MUSWEN) which is the umbrella body for all Muslim organisations in the region. And if he had not become the President of MUSWEN, he would probably not have risen to the post of Deputy President-General (South) of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). With the latter post, he is the paramount leader of all the Muslims in the entire Southern Nigeria by the grace of Allah. What could have made this possible besides destiny through the guidance of Allah?

Now, if, in the course of reading his citation, we trace the background of this man to any school or madrasah he attended at the early age of his life, what lesson are we to learn from that? If we describe him as one of the foremost but quiet philanthropists currently in Nigeria, and list the chain of his philanthropic gestures, what uniqueness can we derive from that for him? If we say here that he is married with children and he gave those children qualitative education how does that make his life different from the lives of his peers? All those are a common feature of common citations often presented publicly, sometimes, to the boredom of the audience.

 

The difference he makes

What actually makes conspicuous difference in this man’s life, which only a few people are able to perceive and focus, is his ability to identify, early in life, the factors of equanimity in human life.

That is the guiding principle adopted by Dr Babalola who rose from the dungeon of obscurity to a very high pedestal of limelight in integrity despite all odds. But he added an addendum of his own to that principle. That addendum which has become a template for those who are willing to learn is as follows:

“To be happy in life you must make others happy. And to live in peace, you must ventilate a peaceful environment for others. Happiness is based on peace and peace from man to man is reciprocal”.

Thus, for Dr Babalola, rising to become a towering leader was not by fortuitous. He had painstakingly studied the qualities of a good leader and he has patiently imbibed those qualities through self-discipline and divinely guided inspiration.

 

Qualities of good leadership

Anybody who cares to know the qualities of good leadership which form the ladder that took this great man to this stage of his life will discover those qualities to be as follows:

Meaningful focus; interminable patience; relentless confidence; untamable courage; inspired innovations; natural humility; irrepressible endurance; insubordinate assiduity; divinely-guided self-motivation; impeccable resilience; enviable transparency; unequalled generosity; plausible accountability; unfaultable authenticity; intractable decisiveness; absolute contentment and, of course, unpolluted conscience.

 

Question

Now, which of these qualities cannot be found in this man? And which of them should not be emulated by young men and women who are aspiring to be leaders tomorrow? This reminds one of a stanza in the poem of an Arab poet thus:

“He is not a man whoever relies on the achievements of his parents to exhibit pride; a man indeed is he who can stand out of the pack with his head raised, and say: here I am today, despite all odds of life”.

Today, at the peak of his ladder of excellence, Dr Babalola has become a school for those who want to study the ladder of life and how to mount it to the top. You can now see why a citation like this is said to be unconventional.  In modern time, this is what a citation should be to enable future leaders to learn from it in preparation for the mantle of leadership.

 

Conclusion

This alternative citation is hereby concluded with a prayer that was once offered poetically by an American woman (J. Walch) who dedicated her entire life to the service of mankind upon which she died. That prayer has since become a daily rhyme for Dr Babalola in words and in action. It goes thus:

“God make my life a little staff, upon which the weak may rest, that what so health and wealth I have may serve my neighbours best”.

We pray Allah to preserve his life and imbue him with continued sound health and guidance, that he may serve humanity for long in good spirit. Amen.

 

IT has been asserted severally in this column that the similitude of column writing in a national newspaper on a weekly basis is like pregnancy in the womb of an expectant mother. When the pregnancy reaches advanced stage, its carrier can hardly have a moment of respite until she has been delivered of a bouncing baby whose cry will ginger her into consciousness.

 

The problem of a columnist

The problem of a quality columnist is not a dearth of ideas but a deluge of them. No columnist of worth will ever be in want of vocabulary to use in   presenting his thoughts and ideas to his readers. A strong linguistic background and many years of experience in reading and writing would have taken proper care of that. Thus, a worthy columnist faces problem only when it comes to choosing the subject of his writing. Such is the weekly intellectual agony which any newspaper or magazine columnist, anywhere in the world, is compelled to pass through from time to time.

 

Dilemma of a columnist

While a columnist is busy ruminating on an issue to write about, several other issues will spring up and start throwing themselves to him torrentially in such a way that he may easily falls into  a dilemma or even confusion.

That was the case with yours sincerely this week. Today’s topic was not at all, in the cluster of subjects competing for consideration in this column. But usually, in the melee of searching the brain for a subject that will attract the attention of readers and quench their intellectual thirst, an experienced columnist should be able to push his God-given skill to the front burner to meet the momentary taste of his readers.

 

Skill as a hobby

Ability to speak or write intellectually is a gift from Allah which grows into a skill over   time. And it becomes much easier when such a skill becomes a hobby. Speaking, no matter how eloquently done, cannot be as important as getting audience. So is writing. A speaker can be classified as an orator only by the audience that listens to him always and benefit from the richness of his speech. Experienced radio and television broadcasters can attest to this. In the same vein, an author or a columnist can be celebrated or denigrated only by his readers. Any writer who takes his readers for granted, therefore, does so at his own risk. Such a writer may not be qualified for an author or a columnist. Today’s topic in this column was chosen extemporaneously out of the miscellany of others that were earnestly putting themselves forward for prompt attention.

The topic is more about the modern virtue which gives the modern man a worthy life to live. That virtue is education that serves as the master key to the door of knowledge. Without knowledge, human life would have been worthless. Today, the main symbol of knowledge is the citadel called University. The master key to that citadel is not certificate as mostly misconceived, especially in Nigeria, but the use to which it is humbly put.

 

Home of knowledge

Abeokuta, the traditional home of knowledge and culture in Nigeria, will be agog tomorrow, Saturday, October 20. That is probably another day on which a famous Yoruba adage: “every day is like a festival”,  will be further ascertained with its deep-rooted meaning. And that is the destination of today’s cruising yacht of writing called ‘The Message’ Column. And the anchorage is Crescent University, Abeokuta (CUAB) where morality is the permanent rule. That is the place where a miscellany of citations will be read when some great Nigerians will be conferred with doctoral degrees  (Honoris Causa) in some notable areas of human endeavour. Dr. S. O. Babalola is one of those to be so conferred and the expected citations to be read at that occasion, in respect of person is of particular interest to this columnist.

 

An alternative citation

Life is a school in which many apartments are available. If you are lucky to study in one department, do not assume that you have acquired all the needed education with which to survive the oddities of life. It is one thing to pass through a school. It is another to allow the same school to pass through you. That is the real essence of any education that will culminate in useful knowledge.

The unassuming Octogenarian gentleman popularly known as Dr. S. O. Babalola has been on stage in Nigeria’s amphitheatre of positive actions for more than 50 years. Yet, he still surges ahead to the satisfactory comfort of those around him, home and abroad. If I were in a position to present this exemplary man’s citation at any public event, below is what I would have liked to present:

“This is a citation and not a summary of a biography. It is the citation of one of Nigeria’s iconic leaders who is eminently qualified to be cited vertically from the pack of his horizontal peers. This citation is unconventional. Unlike many other citations, the emphasis here is neither on the date and place of birth nor on the schools attended and the certificates obtained. The emphasis here is rather on a citation from which most people, present here or absent, will learn how to keep the track of life without falling by the way side.

If, on any occasion, every citation is about date of birth, schools attended or wives married the day will be tastelessly dotted with sheer rhetoric and heavily clouded by a boring monotony. The world is fast changing with dynamism and anybody who refuses to join the train of change before it leaves the station will be left behind to do so on another day.

 

The Cornerstone

“While man’s desires and aspirations stir, he cannot choose but err; yet, in his erring journey through the night, instinctively, he travels towards the light”. By Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The above poem is the parable of a rejected stone that has turned out to be the cornerstone of the house. Those who can still remember the history of Prophet Ismail, (the first son of Prophet Ibrahim) should be able to recall that the son was once ejected with his mother, from their family home and banished to a desert asylum at a place now called Makkah.  Today, we can all see the outcome of that episode in the everlasting uniqueness of Hajj as the fifth pillar of Islam. As it was in the primordial time, so it is in the contemporary time”.

 

Profile of an Icon

“We have a man in our midst here today, whose rising profile has enabled us to know that the purpose of human life is not just to live comfortably and be happy. Beneath many days of happy mood are some quiet nights of sleeplessness and tears of sorrow. That is the secret of human experience which should serve as the first lesson to be learnt in a citation. Dr. S. O. Babalola, OON, is a man who combines humility with conscience to form an identity by which he is generally known. That is an identity that clearly distinguishes a man of honour from men of wealth. We should all know that humility based on conscience is the most active cursor of piety.

 

His rising profile

Perhaps, if Dr Babalola had not exprienced rejection in certain quarters, at a stage in his life’s odyssey, he would not have emerged as the President of the Muslim Ummah of the South West Nigeria (MUSWEN) which is the umbrella body for all Muslim organisations in the region. And if he had not become the President of MUSWEN, he would probably not have risen to the post of Deputy President-General (South) of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). With the latter post, he is the paramount leader of all the Muslims in the entire Southern Nigeria by the grace of Allah. What could have made this possible besides destiny through the guidance of Allah?

Now, if, in the course of reading HIS citation, we trace the background of this man to any school or madrasah he attended at the early age of his life, what lesson are we to learn from that? If we describe him as one of the foremost but quiet philanthropists currently in Nigeria, and list the chain of his philanthropic gestures, what uniqueness can we derive from that for him? If we say here that he is married with children and he gave those children qualitative education how does that make his life different from the lives of his peers? All those are a common feature of common citations often presented publicly, sometimes, to the boredom of the audience.

 

The difference he makes

What actually makes conspicuous difference in this man’s life, which only a few people are able to perceive and focus, is his ability to identify, early in life, the factors of equanimity in human life.

That is the guiding principle adopted by Dr Babalola who rose from the dungeon of obscurity to a very high pedestal of limelight in integrity despite all odds. But he added an addendum of his own to that principle. That addendum which has become a template for those who are willing to learn is as follows:

“To be happy in life you must make others happy. And to live in peace, you must ventilate a peaceful environment for others. Happiness is based on peace and peace from man to man is reciprocal”.

Thus, for Dr Babalola, rising to become a towering leader was not by fortuitous. He had painstakingly studied the qualities of a good leader and he has patiently imbibed those qualities through self-discipline and divinely guided inspiration.

 

Qualities of good leadership

Anybody who cares to know the qualities of good leadership which form the ladder that took this great man to this stage of his life will discover those qualities to be as follows:

Meaningful focus; interminable patience; relentless confidence; untamable courage; inspired innovations; natural humility; irrepressible endurance; insubordinate assiduity; divinely-guided self-motivation; impeccable resilience; enviable transparency; unequalled generosity; plausible accountability; unfaultable authenticity; intractable decisiveness; absolute contentment and, of course, unpolluted conscience.

 

Question

Now, which of these qualities cannot be found in this man? And which of them should not be emulated by young men and women who are aspiring to be leaders tomorrow? This reminds one of a stanza in the poem of an Arab poet thus:

“He is not a man whoever relies on the achievements of his parents to exhibit pride; a man indeed is he who can stand out of the pack with his head raised, and say: here I am today, despite all odds of life”.

Today, at the peak of his ladder of excellence, Dr Babalola has become a school for those who want to study the ladder of life and how to mount it to the top. You can now see why a citation like this is said to be unconventional.  In modern time, this is what a citation should be to enable future leaders to learn from it in preparation for the mantle of leadership.

 

Conclusion

This alternative citation is hereby concluded with a prayer that was once offered poetically by an American woman (J. Walch) who dedicated her entire life to the service of mankind upon which she died. That prayer has since become a daily rhyme for Dr Babalola in words and in action. It goes thus:

“God make my life a little staff, upon which the weak may rest, that what so health and wealth I have may serve my neighbours best”.

We pray the Almighty Allah to preserve his life and imbue him with continued sound health, guidance and protection, that he may serve humanity for long in good spirit. Amen.

 

“Let there become of you a nation that shall call for righteousness, enjoin justice and forbid evil. Such are people that shall surely triumph (in the end)”. Q. 3: 104.

This is not just an article. It is rather a letter of admonition coming from ‘The Message’ column to Nigerian politicians. Similar letters had been written through this column to this same generation of politicians in the recent past. But letters of this type seldom come to the arena of politics where conscience is banished and virtually everything in Nigeria’s political life is based on whim engendered by self aggrandizement which is considered to be the ultimate goal. Coming up at this precarious time of political labyrinth in Nigeria, this letter is necessitated by the current frightening political tension that is fast becoming a bubble which may burst anytime from now unless the Almighty Allah comes to the rescue of our country with His divine mercy.

If you, Nigerian politicians, think that you can escape any calamitous consequence of your ongoing political machinations which you are tendentiously weaving around Nigeria without an iota of remorse, you may be day-dreaming. The evil plans of those who engaged in similar machinations before you in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s had ended up in a forlorn. There is a lesson in that for those amongst you who are wise enough to seek the guidance of Allah.

 

 Functions of conscience

“Conscience”, according to Uthman Dan Fodio, “is an open wound which only the truth can heal”. But one can talk of healing a wounded conscience only where and when it has not become cancerous.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once gave a vivid description of the signs by which hypocrites can be identified.

He said “hypocrites are known by three signs: When they talk they lie; when they promise they renege and when they are trusted they betray”. In other words, conscience is not a befitting garment for any hypocrite to clad in.

Most of you (Nigerian politicians) so much typify the above Prophetic description of hypocrites that one wonders if the Prophet had Nigerians like you in mind when he was expressing that axiomatic Hadith.

 

Deceptive motive

It will be recalled that when most of you started agitation for a return to democracy for the fourth time in the late 1990s while a despotic military demagogue held sway, your seeming focus was on liberation of the Nigerian citizenry from the crushing claw of military despotism. And you did that in the name of freedom fighters or human rights advocates. But hardly had you succeeded in leading the masses to drive away the military boys than some of you began to agitate for your own negative political enclave through your selfish interest by claiming to want ‘to serve your people’.

Thus, based on that claim, your godfathers or godmothers warmly embraced you not minding your hidden agenda especially when such agenda did not contradict theirs. That claim, which was the bait with which you deceptively lured ordinary Nigerians into the struggle that ended up in raising your own political pedestal to the height upon which you stand today was a covenant. And that covenant was not just between you and the people you claimed to want to serve but also between you and the Almighty Allah who knows every manifest and hidden agenda. Allah will surely hold you accountable for whatever agenda you adopt to exploit the innocent masses of this country.

 

Fraudulent constitution

To you, it does not matter whether you were genuinely elected or surreptitiously smuggled into office through the back door by your godfathers thereby  depriving others (who are more qualified than you), of their legitimate rights. Such could not have mattered to you since the constitution under which you operate politically is, itself, fraudulent. Here is a military constitution imposed on the populace without any impute from the same populate who constitute the electorate. In that constitution is the immunity which is exclusively reserved for some political demagogues to fraudulently authorize them to steal public funds unlimitedly and commit any unquestionable crime with impunity in the name of governance. What else is called despotism?

And now, an addendum has been added to that fraud with the promotion of ‘Not Too Young To Rule’ bill into a law which is actually meant to replace yourselves, as  politicians, with your own children. That is a way of empowering those children to utilize your massively stolen wealth to continue your rule over Nigerians.

Whether you knew it or not, you are hereby reminded that your original claim before you were smuggled into whatever position you occupy today will be weighed against your action or inaction in that position after you eventually vacate the stage by displacement or by death. And you will be judged not just by history but by the Almighty Allah whose divine judgment cannot be appealed.

Remember that just as you will call on Allah for justice if you were in the shoes of the deprived ones so will those you deprive take your case to Allah’s court in quest of justice. And the prayer of a cheated person, according to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), never suffers a denial.

 

Reminder

As some of you once shamelessly graded figure 16 higher than figure 19 sometime ago and audaciously classified unbridled theft as a lesser crime than corruption, all in the name of politics, you must remember that Allah’s justice can neither be manipulated nor subverted. And no matter how long it may take, Allah’s justice will take its course perhaps when you least expect in life.

When some of your colleagues were made to face the music of their criminal acts recently, you were expected to learn a lesson from their plights. But since a dog that will die in perdition will never heed the warning whistle of a hunter, it is not surprising that despite your conspicuous political misdemeanour, you are still arrogating the nation’s leadership to yourselves without thinking of the lessons that the younger ones including your own children can learn from your conduct on their way to the top. In words and actions, you have evidently demonstrated that you are not in anyway, qualified to bequeath any sensible legacy to the future generations, an indication that once you can satisfy your satanic greed, the future is of no relevance to you.

If anything, your thoughtless public utterances, your shameless public actions and counter actions as well as your devilish body language are more destructive to Nigeria’s future than ever imagined. In fact, you can be called any name other than patriotic gentlemen and women of honour that you deceptively call yourselves. As a result, you are unprecedentedly a disgrace not only to Nigeria as a country but also to the entire civilized mankind. However, since you have permanently enlisted immorality as a vital political instrument without thinking of its consequences, you are free to behave like typical intoxicated horses gallivanting aimlessly around without reins.

 

Life without justice

In Islam, three issues are fundamentally sacrosanct, none of which Allah takes lightly. These are non association of anything with the oneness of Allah, sacredness of life and dispensation of justice. It is almost an unforgivable iniquity for any human being, especially Muslims, to associate anything with Allah or engage in murder and injustice under any guise. Thus, anybody who kills fellow human beings extra-judicially in the name of religion, ethnicity, politics or even economy is nothing but an agent of Satan. In Islam, killing a fellow human being deliberately under whatever guise, without passing through a due process of law, is such a grievous sacrilege that cannot and should not be perpetrated without commensurate penalty. If such a penalty is not applied here on earth, it will definitely be applied in the hereafter. Yet, killing fellow human beings directly or clandestinely is the major political means of gaining power and access to illegal wealth by you Nigerian politicians.

 

Allah’s wrath

Besides paganism, nothing draws the wrath of Allah  faster than the two crimes mentioned above which Satan may continue to ask you to ignore at your own peril. Murder is physical termination of the life of a fellow human being. Injustice is killing a person mentally, psychologically, politically, economically or spiritually by denying him his legitimate right. Now, which of these have you not employed officially and privately in the course of your political journey? How will you explain these to Allah?

 

 Legislative duty

In Islam, rule of law is the foundation of justice but legislation is the material with which that foundation is built. Those of you who voluntarily chose to legislate for the rest of us hardly see yourselves as the foundation layers of justice who should not betray the course of justice. As legislators, you are looked upon by most Nigerians as honourable leaders neither because you are more qualified intellectually than those for whom you legislate nor because you are wiser and more experienced than them. What makes most of you legislators in the lower or upper chamber of the legislative arm of government is sheer expediency arising from queer inadequacies sadly fostered by our so-called political system which gives room for open gerrymandering and audacious manipulation. If such opportunity comes your way illegally, let it not be mistaken for good luck. It may rather be a calamity waiting to strike your lives in the near or far future.

And when it strikes, no one except Allah can tell the extent of its effect. At least you can see how the consequences of the heartless annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election have become a draconian spectre chasing the ghost of every Nigeria today even more than two decades of licking the political wound inflicted on our country by that satanic annulment.

 

Subversion

Due to lack of conscience, most of you may have forgotten, but you need to be reminded that shortly after you took oath of office either in 1999 or 2003 or 2007 or 2011 or 2015, you started subverting the covenant into which you voluntarily entered with the people who sincerely elected you into office in trust. That covenant was, according to you, to serve them (the people) diligently. And, in a civilized society, people who so choose to serve are seen as nothing other than servants. But, in your own case, no sooner had you been sworn into office than you started calling yourselves leaders and not servants again. By implication, you have so dangerously promoted desperation and impunity to the front burner of Nigerian politics that whoever thinks of serving the country today, through any public office, is seen as a devil that must be kept at an arm’s length. That is where most of you belong. From your public conduct, any right-thinking person can vividly see the types of families you are raising for the nation.

 

Executive duty 

As members of the Executive arm, when some of you travel abroad officially, at people’s expense, you are never alarmed by the way the systems work in those countries. You never bother to ask questions about the effective functions of electricity, the smoothness of roads, the flow of portable water and the excellent educational system that promotes probity and decorum in those countries. Rather, your primary concerns are the personal ephemeral gains accruable to you at the expense of the Nigeria’s present and future. For the past 19 years of Nigeria’s fourth republic most of you have been at the saddle of government directly or indirectly without being able to show in concrete terms what value has that length of time added to the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Your emphasis is on power with impunity rather than good governance and you often go about it in such a manner that gives the impression that government is much more about destruction than construction. Your brutish law breaking rather than clement law making is an attestation to this fact.

 

Nigeria as an OPEC country

As political leaders that you call yourselves, you do not even feel ashamed that Nigeria has remained the only OPEC country importing refined petroleum products for domestic consumption simply because you are beneficiaries of the corrupt device which you deliberately put in place to ensure the workability of that device.

Even if Nigeria never had electricity before 1999 but decided to start one at the commencement of the fourth republic to boost her economy, is a period of 19 years not enough to provide a functional electricity especially given the enormous amount of wealth with which this country is endowed? In modern time, no technological device provides as much opportunity for jobs and economic growth as electricity. Yet, it is that major device that you deliberately hold down to deprive the populace of the wherewithal to rise mentally and intellectually. And that is to enable you to the citizens of your country into perpetual slaves to be ruled forever. In such a situation, why wouldn’t corruption be unconscientiously legislated into legitimacy? And now, Nigeria is held to a standstill because every one of you must personally have a chip of juicy future now without caring about what may even become of your own children in that future.

As fathers and mothers, most of you will say amen when people are praying for responsible men and women, yet, you have nothing in you that can serve as good examples for your children that can accentuate your cry of amen..

You tell lies with relish. Yet you want your children to be truthful. From where do you expect them to inherit truthfulness? You steal public funds with unbridled audacity. Yet you do not want your children to be called thieves. What other names should the children of thieves bear other than thieves?

 

Sermon

From the pulpit of genuine conscience, ‘The Message’ column hereby implores you Nigerian politicians to search your conscience if you have obe at all and fear the Almighty God in your own interest. Remember that some people had governed this country in the past. Among them were those who tried to combine the roles of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary arms together, in the name of military rule, made possible by coup d’état and the barrels of gun. Where are they today?

Governance has its tenure. At the commencement of a tenure, four years may look endless, but for the wise, it is not more than a flash of lightening  which only a fool will rely upon to walk his way through the darkness of the night. You are in government today. But remember that you will soon become former this or former that just like those before you.

 

Duties of public Servants

Ordinarily, the duty of Civil Servants as government officials, whether in the executive, legislative or judicial wing, is to serve your country in such a way that you can create a historical window for yourselves and your children through which the future generations can retrospectively peep into your service lives with reverence. But since everything in Nigeria has been peculiarly monetized (courtesy of Obasanjo regime), it has become a rule that those who hold sway in government, in whatever capacity, are the Lords who must take the lion’s share of our national cake through our lean annual budgets. That is why you randomly but embarrassingly throw some damaging pebbles into our political brook to cause unnecessary ripples in the serenity of that brook to the total disadvantage of today and tomorrow.

 

Observation

Some of you,       l         egislators, think or talk of impeachment only when your salaries, allowances or extra budgetary largess suffers a reduction or delay. And some other times, your thoughts along that line are devilishly influenced by blind ambition for power grabbing. It does not matter to you whether or not the entire workforce in Nigeria remains unpaid for years. Once you are able to amass whatever comes your way legally or illegally the rest of the populace can go on hunger strike forever. It is rather shameful and disappointing that even some of you who claim to be Muslims are participating in such an evil charade despite your proclamation of Islam.

Conscience, though invisible, has a mirror which only a few people know of. That mirror is shame. A person without shame is a person without conscience. And that is the main distinction between a genuine Muslim and a nominal one.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once admonished the Muslims thus in respect of shame: “once you are bereft of shame, you can go ahead to do whatever you like”. This means that without shame you are a nonentity who can even strip naked in a market place in readiness for a brawl. We can all see the example of this in a former President of this country who is now menstruating through his mouth at any public place even as an octogenarian.

 

Admonition

Dear Nigerian politicians, let it be kept permanently in your brain that the only thing which keeps people alive in history even long after their demise is service to humanity. Prophets Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad (SAW), had neither bank accounts nor estates to bequeath to anybody. Their legacy is more than any material wealth inherited by the entire world today. That heritage is service to humanity. What is your own planned legacy if only for posterity? That is a big question which only people with conscience can answer. And, as Muslims or Christians, you should be able to answer it if you truly follow the right guidance of those noble men of impeccable character.

 

Remember that you are in a ship already cruising actively on the high sea towards the shore. And at that shore are fierce customs officers waiting to check the contents of your luggage and your cargo. Remember that if you cultivate friendship with Satan he will favour your wish. But if he grants you one favour, he will surely take ten from you in return. Be Muslims by name, conduct and mannerism. Whatever you do as Muslims will affect the image of Islam in one way or the other. I hope you will return home from your political odyssey as Muslims and not as renegades. Remember all these and adjust now that you may be able to raise your head aloft when tomorrow comes.

Alumni and Alma Mater are two primordial words that refuse to go into extinction with a primordial language called Latin. The refusal of those two words to go down the drains of history as sustained by the imperishable values they represent in the cotemporary world is a further confirmation that the universe is truly dynamic. We are living witnesses to that factual assertion.

Ordinarily, if anything is deemed different between the world of the past and that of the present, it is the utilization of the values in both as relevant to their times of existence.

Perhaps the above assertion is what a private University called Crescent in Abeokuta, Ogun State of Nigeria is accentuating today with its uniqueness in turning a historic legacy into an incredible heritage.

 

Connotation  

Galaxy is a celestial world in which stars of all sizes, shapes and measures dwell dramatically sometimes to the consternation of all other existing creatures. Without galaxy, there can be no place for stars to display their skills. And without stars it may be difficult to fully appreciate the values of galaxy. Thus, the co-existence of both is what keeps the universe going through the days and nights that graduate into weeks, months and years in the life of man.

The co-existence of galaxy and stars as cited above is a parable through which the symbiotic relationship of the Alma Mater called CUAB and its graduates called alumni is exhibited despite the relatively young age of both.

 

CUAB As a Galaxy

In its own terrestrial right, CUAB is a Nigerian galaxy that provides a befitting intellectual habitat for its alumni even as the latter keep the glory of the former aloft with moral equipment in all parts of the world. That habitat is not of intellectualism alone. It is rather more of good character which CUAB considers as the main propeller of dignity in all spheres of human life. In CUAB, education without good character is like smoke without fire which can neither cook nor produce coal for other purposes. To this exemplary University, Character is a major factor in the assessment of education and civility in man which should not be compromised in any circumstance. Any man who claims to be educated must be a model of good character. A supposed educated person who lacks good character is like a crown prince who dances naked to an inaudible music in an open market. That is exactly how the Crescent University perceives any University graduate without good manners. And that explains the reason for CUAB’s placement of premium on good manners for any student that passes through it. Take a second look at any graduate of Crescent University anywhere and you will immediately feel the aura of discipline and morality.

The name Crescent is symbolic of both dream and realization. And just as the tiny celestial Crescent  gives birth to the gorgeous moon so does the moon turn round to rekindle the glow of the crescent. It is a dynamically reciprocal function carried out naturally. Thus, in what seems to be a natural continuum, the cycle of life rolls on progressively to infinitude.

 

The impact of CUAB

Today, Crescent University, Abeokuta (CUAB), is quietly reshaping the structure of Nigerian society by moulding a new generation of men and women that can be called worthy Nigerian citizens. Within 13 years of its existence, this glorious citadel of knowledge and excellent morality has signaled to the entire world that University is not merely for obtaining meal tickets in the name of certificates but an indispensable hub of positive signposts for human civility. That signal is evident in virtually all the graduates of CUAB who have distinguished themselves vertically in various fields of human endeavours where others of their peers are only struggling to seek survival horizontally. With such an exemplary impact, therefore, it cannot be strange that full concentration on good character-based education and its adequate usage for the benefit of mankind is the priority of the Crescent University.

 

A Country’s Attitude    

In a country like Nigeria where good deeds are hardly noticed or acknowledged, it cannot be a surprise that Crescent University has not attracted the attention of any government (State or Federal) for an encouraging accolade that can pave way for impeccable emulation. But the consolation here is that while Nigeria for which the graduates of CUAB are intentionally produced for development remains indifferent, some foreign countries that appreciate the quality embedded in morality and are benefiting tremendously from the prowess of CUAB graduates continue to ask for more. This confirms that the likes of CUAB alumni in Nigerian universities are very, very rare.

 

Parent’s Reaction

Some Nigerian parents who had planned to send their wards abroad for University degrees but decided to change their minds and take such wards to CUAB can testify to the facts above. The decision of those parents paid off in terms of the comfort they now enjoy in monitoring their wards effectively against consumption of illicit drugs and involvement in such iniquities as rape, sodomy and lesbianism which are particularly rampant in Western countries. Besides, the cost of financing those wards in CUAB is much cheaper than keeping them abroad where thorough monitoring is almost impossible.

 

African Attitude

Incidentally, It is a well known fact that in Africa where imitation is a norm, great values are not appreciated in the lands of their dwellings. If all students of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions were exposed to the same intellectual and humanitarian orientation as that of CUAB, perhaps Nigeria would not have become a pariah country that she is today.

 

The Super Stars

Among the super star graduates that form the Crescent galaxy that fly the flag of CUAB around the world are the following:

1. Rafiat Alli, a 2013 first class B.Sc graduate of Accounting. She went to the United Kingdom (UK) where she also stood out of the pack by emerging as the best M. Msc. student with distinction in Forensic Accounting at Pretsmouth University, UK.
2. Adenike Gawat who made a first class B.Sc in Mass Communication at Crescent University and was helping a Nigerian bank to build an ICT department when she won a scholarship to study for M. Sc. at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland where she topped the ladder of academic work to clinch a distinction at M.Sc level in Corporate Communication and Public Affairs in 2014. It was Adenike’s character and not just academic brilliance that forced her lecturers in Gordon University to become inquisitive about her academic background in Nigeria. That university had to send some staffs to Crescent University to ascertain the authenticity of Gawat’s claim that she graduated from a Nigerian private university. And after confirming that claim, the university became eager to have more students from CUAB for masters and Ph. D in Gordon. That was an excellent matter of Honour for Nigeria at the instance of a well mannered Nigerian student from CUAB. And when Adenike finally graduated with distinction at masters level from Gordon University and returned to Nigeria to pick up  a job, she became a darling job seeker that every employer wanted for boosting of business with honesty influenced by morality. But while she was still ruminating on which of those jobs to settle down with, an international bank in Switzerland traced her to Nigeria and hijacked her for a fantastic job with fantastic package.
3. The best graduating student at the 7th convocation of Crescent University was Miss Oyinkasola Fagbohun. In her valedictory speech, this 20 year old distinguished student dismissed the surreptitious insinuation that private university certificates in Nigeria are cheap. This is how she expressed her view on the matter: ” I was one of those who always thought that private schools were a piece of cake but to my surprise it wasn’t like that. In fact, it was not a business as usual here (in CUAB)….”. Fagbohun led 434 other students from Colleges of Information and Communication Technology, Natural and Applied Sciences, Social and Management Sciences as well as Environmental Sciences to emerge as the 2015 best graduating student thereby winning the vice chancellor’s prize, the college prize and the departmental ( Economics) prize respectively.
4. The best 2013/2014 graduating student of crescent University, is Ibrahim Ayoola Olatunde. As the valedictorian of that academic session, he eloquently revealed the secret of his success in a captivating manner.

Four years before his graduation, Ibrahim Ayoola Olatunde was in the crowd when Fatimot Titilope Ajagbe was celebrated as the best graduating student of Crescent University.  According to him, it was on that day, as a 100-Level student, that he also decided to work hard to score a Cummulative Grade Point Agregate (CGPA) that could make him the CUAB’s valedictorian of his graduation session. That desire, backed up by unflinching determination, was fulfilled when the young man led 247 fellow students to emerge as the best graduating student for the 2013/2014 academic session.

The then 23-year old man graduated with a Cumulative Grade Point Aggregate (CGPA) of 4.76 from the Computer Science Department, College of Information and Communication Sciences (CICOT) of the university. Below is what he had to say on that occasion:

“I became determined to take the prize when I witnessed the 2010 Best Graduating Student, Fatimot Titilope Ajagbe speak of her success. I told myself that if a female student could bag the award, then I could also develop myself to achieve the same feat”. He added that getting permission to leave the campus only three times in a month, according to CUAB’s regulation helped him very much to manage his time and academic resources in such a way as to be imbued with the type of discipline not known with most Nigerian Universities.

All the above mentioned students and others whose names are not mentioned here have either gone for their post graduate studies in various parts of the world outside Nigeria or secured gainful and qualitative employment in first class companies and establishments. These were possible not because of their academic brilliance alone but because of the non-such character that stands them out of the pack . They are the worthy ambassadors of their country Nigeria.

 

CUAB’s 2018 Convocation

On Saturday, October 20, 2018, according to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Crescent University, the 10th graduation ceremony of the 13-year old citadel of academic and moral excellence will come up in the main auditorium of the University as usual. On that occasion, this year’s nominated valedictorian, Miss Ayokunnumi Tiamiyu has, in preparation for her impending historic valedictory speech,   showered accolades on the Founder and Proprietor of CUAB, His Excellency Judge Bola Ajibola for reviving her university education through scholarship when she was on the verge of dropping out owing to her parent’s inability to continue to pay her tuition fee. The jubilant 21-year old Tiamiyu will be leading the pack at the 10th convocation with a Cumulative Grade Point Aggregate of 4.91 from the  Department of Microbiology, College of Natural and Applied Sciences (CONAS).

With her CGPA of 4.91,Ayokunnumi Tiamiyu has emerged the very best of all the best products of Crescent University who have graduated with First Class so far.

According to the scholar, she had already lost hope of continuing her studies at Crescent University and was almost requesting for her transcript to be able to  seek admission into a public university when her attention was drawn to Bola Ajibola Scholarship for Academic and Moral Excellence. That was during her 200-level in 2016, when she was on a grade point of 4.95, the highest any student of Crescent University has ever scored.

In her narration, she stated as follows: “a few months later,I got a call from the Deputy Registrar,Alhaji M. A. Lawal to come and apply for a scholarship which he had discussed about with the Vice- chancellor of the University, Prof. Ibraheem Gbajabiamila who was so highly impressed by her first class grade performance that he assured her that she would get the scholarship albeit with a caveat that she must maintain her CGPA sthroughout her studies. And just a few weeks later, Tiamiyu got another call from the university that her scholarship had been granted and that she should come for an acknowledgement of same.

Thus, the elated scholar who confessed that she had never met Judge Ajibola personally described the former judge of the International Court of Justice as a generous man whose generosity continues to amaze her. She saluted Judge Ajibola’s industry and selfless investment, a part of which she benefitted from.

 

Honouris Causa

The University’s PRO also disclosed that the university will also be honouring the Deputy President,South-west,Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA),Alhaji Sakariyau Babalola, with Doctor of Science honouris causa Business Administration for his philanthropic contributions to his country’s higher institutions from time to time. As the day of CUAB’s 2018 convocation is fast drawing near, the world is waiting to usher another glorious scholar of civility into the hobbit of galaxy. God bless the Crescent.

God bless its proprietor.