Regional News of Monday, 30 August 2010

Source: GNA

Abeka Senate Club forms a Committee to fight 'Sakawa'

Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - Senate Club, an Abeka-based Muslim non-governmental organization, has inaugurated a committee to educate Muslim youth against cybercrime (commonly known as "Sakawa") and other negative tendencies.

"We want to also use the committee to enlighten them on the benefits of formal education among Muslims and indeed the entire country."

Mr Mohammed Issah, Chairman of the Club, announced these when they provided dinner for about 500 Muslims at the Abeka Central Mosque as part of their social responsibilities during the month of fasting.

He said members of the committee were drawn from Muslim scholars and opinion leaders, Muslim students and clerics in the public and private sectors.

This is the second time the club has provided such meals to the congregation to demonstrate sharing, which is part of the Muslim social tenets during the month of Ramadan after initiating it last year.

Mr Issah said they embarked on the educational programme against "Sakawa" in view of the fact that most of the Muslim youth had previously engaged in the practice.

He called on Muslim groups throughout the country to support the committee to redeem the image of the religion that had been damaged by those practices.

In a sermon to climax the feting programme, Mallam Hussein Hassan Yeboah, a Muslim Scholar called on Muslims to make judicious use of their time.

"The devil they say finds work for the idle hands and I will like to make a passionate appeal to all Muslims especially the youth to make good use of their time by eschewing laziness and other negative activities."

Mallam Yeboah expressed disappointment that the youth who were given ample assistance were ignoring such useful assistance and engaging in fruitless ventures such as gambling and unnecessary arguments.

He said lack of qualification prevented a lot of Muslim youth from positions that were initially designed by Muslim companies for people of the same faith in the country.

"There are companies from the Arab world whose main aim was to invest and employ Muslim youth in Ghana unfortunately most of the people lacked the qualification to acquire jobs from them," he concluded.