The impending war, unlike previous religious crises, won’t be waged against Christians by some Islamic fundamentalists. This time, members of two Islamic organizations will be baying for one another’s blood.
Already, members of the Zumratul Jamiu Muminu Muslim Society based in Mowe, a community located off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, and some ex-members of the sect have become sworn enemies.
A little provocation from either group might ignite a bloody fire that will consume hundreds of souls.
Zumratul Jamiu Muminu Muslim Society, an Islamic sect founded by Alhaji Mohammad Jamiu Adeyemi Aboyepe, has its main worship centre at kilometre 43, Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Pakuro bus stop, in Mowe, Ogun State. The leader of the sect is popularly known as Alfa Michael and membership of the group is spread around Lagos, Ogun and Oyo states.
Many members of the sect have since dumped the group, saying its doctrines are anti-Islam. They are now accusing Alhaji Aboyepe of perpetrating numerous atrocities in the name of Islam. Former membersof the sect who are now at daggers drawn with Alfa Michael and his group include Alhaji Tijani Adeniyi, Abdul-Bashir Abdullahi, Lukman Adebayo and Aminu Lukman, among others. In separate encounters with Daily Sun, they said they had wandered in the wilderness for long after being brainwashed by Aboyepe.
But the sect leader has punctured their claims. Alhaji Aboyepe told Daily Sun that all the allegations against him are nothing but satanic lies.
An aggrieved ex-member, Alhaji Tijani Adeniyi claimed that he lost one of his daughters, Medinat, to the Zumratul Jamiu Muminu Muslim Society.
Some of the former members of Alfa Michael’s group have since joined another Islamic group, the Unified Muslim Ummah, Owode-Onirin, along Ikorodu Road, Lagos. The group recently went for a spiritual retreat at Oloronbo, off Pakuro bus stop, Mowe. After the programme, members decided to establish a mosque on the retreat ground. But Alhaji Aboyade was said to have resisted the plan. He reportedly deployed members of his group to ensure that the vision did not materialize.
“The place is a stone’s throw from the camp of Alfa Michael,” Alfa Lukman Adebayo said. “It was on March 21, 2009. Even before the retreat, Alfa Michael had sent some of his members to mount loud speakers directly opposite the place. As we were having our programme, they were playing some of his recorded messages and they were really disturbing us. So, we reported the case to the police at Mowe. But as soon as the police left, they started playing the messages again. Later, they even beat up one of us who they falsely accused of stealing from their camp. The case is now at Eleweran Police Station in Abeokuta.”
Sexual ills and more
Among the litany of ills said to have been perpetrated by Aboyepe was that he employs x-rated movies to lure young and under-aged girls into having sex orgies with him. His accusers insisted to the reporter that Alfa Michael has deflowered no fewer than 15 girls in his camp. He was also said to force male members of his denomination to marry the girls he had already defiled.
Exodus
A large number of Alfa Michael’s followers were said to have left the group in 1982 when they allegedly found out that their boss was committing adultery with their wives and daughters in the camp. This they claimed led to his removal as the Imam of the congregation. Subsequently, one Ustaz Abdul-Fatah Junaid, was said to have been appointed to lead all congregational prayers in the camp. Alfa Michael was reported to have come back as the Imam in 1986 after he had shown remorse for “his immoral acts.”
Western Education
The society started operating a school before moving to its present site in Mowe. The school was then named Islamic Centre Nursery and Primary School. With parents bringing their wards to the school in droves, the building at 30, Ogungbe Street, Okoya, Ajegunle Apapa in Lagos became too congested for the children. The school was later moved to the sect’s permanent site in Mowe in September 1995. In Mowe, the name of the school was changed to Zumratul Jamiu Muminu Anglo-Arabic Nursery, Primary and Secondary School.
Alfa Salawudeen Tirimisiyu used to be a teacher in the school. According to him, he worked without pay from 1991 to 1994. He finally quit in 2006.
He told Daily Sun: “The teachers were the ones buying teaching aid and other materials. Before we moved to Mowe, we agreed that each parent should be paying N25 on monthly basis. Salary was fixed for the teachers and the highest paid teacher then was receiving N2, 000. 00. Some others’ salary was as low as N300. Right from 1991 when the school was established to 1994, no teachers collected any salary until the school was moved to Mowe in 1995.”
Circumcision
Every male member of the group, Daily Sun also gathered, must be given special circumcision. Any male child that is at least eight days old must be circumcised. Circumcision, according to the group, means three long incisions made in eight different parts of the body of the member. But to the ex-members, what circumcision means is the removal of the foreskin from the male genital. But the leader of the Zumratul Jamiu Muminu Muslim Society was said to have described the sect’s style of circumcision as an important act in Islam.
Slave camp
The ex-members also said Alfa Michael runs the society like a slave camp. “The pupils eat eba, ewedu and stew without meat or fish and they also sleep in clusters like a pack of sardines. They also operate an illegal boarding school,” an ex-member told Daily Sun. EFCC
A former member of the sect, Tayo Abdul-Hakeem Yusuf, who described himself as an environmental consultant, had dragged Alfa Michael before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2005, accusing the sect of planning to bomb the American Embassy. He accused the group of active involvement in the forgery of documents used by government agencies, financial institutions and embassies in Nigeria.
Yusuf said he left the group when he discovered that the leader of the sect was having an affair with his wife, Tijuaja Iyabo.
Yusuf also said the sect’s documents at the Ogun State Ministry of Education through which the approval for its primary and secondary schools in Mowe was facilitated, were forged.
The EFCC later dismissed Yusuf’s claims, saying all documents submitted by the society were genuine. Daily Sun gathered that Yusuf had earlier taken the matter to both the police and the State Security Service (SSS) in Ogun State. Both organizations also dismissed his petition.
Fake Alhaji
Aggrieved ex-members of the sect are accusing Alfa Michael of calling himself an Alhaji without performing the Hajj. They claimed that Alfa Michael went to Saudi Arabia in 1986 outside the Hajj season and as such cannot legitimately call himself an Alhaji. He was also accused of banning members of his sect from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca.
The 75-year old preacher was also said to claim superiority in the knowledge of Islam over all Muslim scholars and clerics across the globe. “He professes to be the last prophet who has a divine mandate to complete the acts of worship that Prophet Mohammad was unable to accomplish during his lifetime,” Daily Sun learnt.
‘It’s all lies’
Leader of the sect, Alhaji Mohammad Jamiu Adeyemi Aboyepe, in an interview with Daily Sun, described as blatant lies all allegations against him.
“I have never told anybody that I am the last prophet,” he said. “God has not allowed the message I preached 47 years ago when I started to contradict what I am preaching now. Why the people who have left this society are doing this is what I don’t know. If I do any wrong thing, God will punish me. I have never told anybody that I am the last prophet.”
30-year-old Medinat Adeniyi who decided to remain with the group after her family left, also told Daily Sun that Alfa Michael never forced her to remain with the society after her father quit. Medinat, a woman in puddah, had to unveil her face in her husband’s presence to enable the reporter take her photograph.
“This man (Alfa Michael) was the one who taught me the commandments of God in the Holy Quran,” Medinat told Daily Sun. “I have not seen any Islamic leader that is as knowledgeable as him in the Holy Quran. He sent me to the Yaba College of Technology where I read Secretarial Administration. I obtained National Diploma from the school in 2007. He’s a genuine man of God,” Medinat stated.
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