Gentlemen of the Press
Fraternal greetings from the Ahlu Sunnah wal jam’ah operating on kilometer 5, Iseyin-Ibadan Road in Oyo state to you all.
We are sure that by now you are all seized with the facts adduced by the government of Oyo State to proscribe the Ahlu Sunnah Islamic society in its executives committee meeting on 20 of September 2013.
As it were, the government relied solely on the charges levied against our organization by people who are opposed to us for economic reasons rather than religion and criminal allegations being bounding around.
It is very plain, that the government have been misled with the false information of enemies of what is right to take sub-judiced decision on these allegations which are currently subject of litigation in the courts in Iseyin, Oyo and Ibadan.
We have therefore come before you all today, to state our case and straighten the facts and to use your medium to appeal to the state government to reconsider its decision because the allegations against us are still in courts and that it would be fair, if the government will allow the judicial process to be concluded before taking any action.
The allegations which alarmed the crisis between us and some misled Muslim brothers were thrown up by our adversaries in the same religion, hiding their disaffection for us under religion, while in actual fact their grouse is economic.
It is our strong opinion that the government should have called us and heard us fairly on the matter, instead of taking decision on the report collated from those who make allegations against us to adjudge us guilty on same allegations which judicial adjudication is pending in various courts.
The Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jam’ah since its formation and occupation of its base on kilometer 5, Iseyin-Ibadan Road, seventeen years ago has never been accused of committing any anti-Islamic and anti-social practices either against any law in Oyo State or laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or against the constitution of the country , only those who are opposed to our way of life and strict Islamic practices have been going around to tell lies against us which they have found difficult to prove against our society.
It is true that there are conflicts between some members of the group and the leadership of the organization as a result of disagreement over the management and control of the revenue generated from the external engagement of the organization especially, money realized from farming and coal production which form the economic mainstay of the congregation. Members voluntarily engage in community farming and production of coal and use proceeds to support themselves on the Ahlu Sunnah camp and meet other basic needs of the community, Iseyin people and outsiders.
There is a standing agreement among the leadership of the group that money realized from the economic engagement should be utilized to cater for the material needs of members so as to ensure that members are focused on Islamic evangelization, to prevent distraction that could result from deprivation and incapacity to meet basic family obligations. Later on, some members felt that this agreement should be waived and started agitating for the sharing of proceeds from the sales of farming product and coal production among members.
As a result, these members constituted themselves as opposition to the teaching and existence of the Ahlu Sunnah Islamic Society because of the opinion that such money realized from economic engagements should be shared. This is the foundation of the crisis which has now become blown up out of proportion.
The facts of the matter are as follows:
(1) Since the aggrieved members could not agree with the leadership on the issue of fund control, they decided to pull out from the society and have since been mounting campaign of calumny in Mosques and among other Islamic groups in Iseyin township using inappropriate charges and dishonest reasons.
(2) The root cause of the crisis is economic rather than religion. This can be confirmed from the spurious charges that complainants against the leadership and individual members of the society have been throwing up since year 2010.
In fact, such charges brought against the leadership in 2010 within the Iseyin Magisterial district include:
(i) Provocative preaching against other Muslim faith at Iseyin.
(ii) At the same time and place, the leadership was charged for imprisonment of one Shakirat Moshood Adeleke (18) Morufat ojo(f) (19) and Hafsat Umoru(f) (17).
(iii) At the same time and place committed the unlawful abduction of five others against their will.
(iv) That Alhaji Yunus Adefabi, leader of the group about the same time and place unlawfully did an intentional act which is an insult to the religion of Islam, whatever that means.
(v) That the same Yunus Adefabi about the same time and place unlawfully confined and detained another 5 named persons thereby depriving them of their personal liberty.

Six members including the leader of the sect were charged.
When the case came up before the Magistrate, nobody came forward to bear witness and the matter was struck-out for want of diligent prosecution.
This was the beginning of the police involvement and frivolous court charges against the leadership, but since those who are alleging cannot prove their cases, the matter was rested at that juncture.
Surprisingly, in 2012, the same old charges and other new allegations were raked up against almost the same accused, knowing full well that the allegations are not true and could not be substantiated.
At Present, there are two of such instigated cases against some accused members pending in the Iseyin Magistrate Court. There is another pending case in Oyo brought up by the police against members on the promptings of these same former members. The charges revolve around abduction, raping, murder and kidnapping which are pending in the courts. Ironically, these are the same charges that the Oyo State Government took its decision to proscribe our society without hearing from us. It is still on record that nobody from outside the camp has ever accused the society of anything unwanted towards either against any Muslim or other religious faith.
Given the various allegations that have been levied against the society, we have been thoroughly investigated by all arms of the security ‘agencies, the SSS, Police and the Army without finding us guilty of any of the allegations. In fact, if these /agencies are asked they will confirm that there is more to the open complaints being made against the sect than meet the eye.

The Agencies have not found anything incriminating against the sect which is known to us. Apart from the SSS and the Police investigations, the Army particularly investigated the operations of the sect, arrested some of its members and took them to Iseyin, saki, Ibadan and Ilorin for thorough investigation but at the end, they were returned back and handed back to the chair of the Iseyin Local Government with a report that nothing was found against them.
As we are addressing you here today, the leader of the sect, Yunus Adefabi is being detained along with 8 others including a female member at the Abolongo prison in Oyo town. It would interest you to hear that the single female member among the detainees was pregnant when she was arrested and she delivered in the prison after 9 months of incarceration but due to the fact that she was not bailed and could not take her right medications, the baby died after 4 days of his delivery. Can we also say that the prison murdered him, because his case is similar to the case of murder being put on the neck of the leader of Ahlu Sunnah, Alhaji Yunus Adefabi?
The cases against these detainees who should be presumed innocent until otherwise found guilty are yet to be disposed off when his Excellency Senator Abiola Ajimobi during the Oyo State Exco decided to proscribe the Ahlu Sunnah Islamic Society disregarding the pendency of these cases in courts presumably based on the facts before the Exco.
Without prejudice to the pending cases in courts, we offer to deny all allegations from these former members who have now formed themselves into opposition and daily mobilizing hateful and unprovable charges against our leadership to yield the government against the sect and turn the society at large and other Islamic faith against our preaching.

We have never kidnapped anybody because there is no cause for it. We have never detained anybody: the society has detention space on the camp.
The society has never carried out murder. This is inexplicable given that we are out to save lives.
We have no cause to rape any of our female members as this is un Islamic. Up till date, only these former members have come forward to lay such allegation at the door step of our members. The female members that were said to have been raped were married to our members and have children. How come that the allegation of rape is coming against the sect or its members? Since it has been pretty difficult to prove these allegations of rape and kidnapping, they have become desperate to add more.
Children who have been named to be kidnapped were never taken on the street, they were wayward children brought by their parents to be brought up in the Islamic way.

However, since our adversaries cannot prove all these, they have now gone extra mile to include murder because they thought doing that will not enable those alleged to be granted bail at least pending the final determination of the case in court. To us, this is wrong in law because those who allege murder must prove it beyond reasonable doubt. In fact, there are certain ingredients that must be proved to lay the commission of murder on the door step of the alleged members. This is what we are expecting them to do in the courts.
From the above, you will see that all their allegations so far have been against individuals, nothing has been found to be contained in the teaching and practices of the sect that support these alleged charges to warrant its proscription.

We are therefore soliciting for the patience of the people who have been misled by the wrong information sold to them to wait for the court decision on all the charges against individual members of the sect to determine the culpability of the sect. This is why we have come to explain our own side of the story through your medium to inform members of the Islamic community and members of other religious faith, that we are not guilty of the charges against us and that was our pleading in the court.
Thank you and we pray for Allah’s blessing for you all.