He said allowing various Muslim factions to hold on to their own schools as personal property only weakened Islamic schools, depriving them of critical infrastructure needed to improve teaching and learning.

Growing stronger

Addressing the closing ceremony of the 2nd annual conference of the national Muslim conference of Ghana in Accra, Mr Muntaka questioned why the Sunni, Ahmadiyya, Shia and Tijania should still want to have their schools as personal property.

“The Ghana Muslim Mission just told us they have 165 basic schools that are in communities just as that of Tijaniya and Alasuna that are keeping their schools as personal property.

“When you pool resources together, you are much stronger than when you are sitting as individuals. So, you can give your schools to the general group with conditions and it will still make us stronger than when you are keeping the schools as your personal property,” he said.

The four-day event was held on the theme: “Towards a coherent and holistic economic empowerment strategy for national development-The Ghanaian Muslim Ummah in context.”

Among others, the event brought together stakeholders to discuss ways of developing an action plan and education strategy to reverse depravity in Muslim communities.

Economic cost

Mr Muntaka, who is also the Minority Chief Whip in Parliament, noted that as long as Muslim factions held on to their schools as individuals, it would be very difficult for the Muslim communities to overcome most of the challenges facing them.

In his view, many of the small Islamic schools were faced with numerous challenges that could only be resolved “if we bring them together.”

Resources

Urging Muslim communities to refrain from celebrating poverty, Mr Muntaka observed that there was so much Muslims could do for themselves to lift many out of poverty.

To achieve that, he said it was critical that Muslims learned to pool resources such as human and financial capital together to address the diverse challenges facing them.

“Individually, we will be poor but collectively we cannot be poor because if we have thousands of mosques, where we take collection every Friday and if we can dedicate just GH?5, the Muslim communities can raise not less that GH?2 million every week

“I do not see what, if we are united, we cannot do with that GH¢2 million a week,” he said

He, therefore, expressed the hope that individual Muslim groupings would look at how they could strengthen the unity among them to reflect the collective unity “we are trying to create.”

Give

The National Chairman of the Ghana Muslim Mission, Sheikh Dr Amin Bonsu, entreated Muslims to cultivate the habit of giving to support worthy cause aimed at improving developments in Muslim communities, especially education.

“We need to donate to support many schools so that our children get quality education and this will help us to sustain the peace and unity among us,” he said.