Alhaji Ibrahim Abubarkari, the National Deputy Secretary of the Islamic Mission Secretariat has urged Muslims to peacefully coexist with people from other religious faiths in the festive season.
He said living in unity with one another, irrespective of one’s ethnic and religious background, would strengthen social cohesion and thereby accelerate progressive growth and sustainable national development.
Alhaji Abubakari gave the advice in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of the 61st Annual National Conference of the MIS, underway at Duayaw-Nkwanta in the Tano North Municipality of the Ahafo Region.
The four-day conference is on the theme: “The Role of Muslims in promoting peace, justice and national cohesion.”
Alhaji Abubarkari said the conference had intensified the teachings of Islam for the Muslim youth to understand the need to embrace diversity and lived in harmony with others for the purpose of development.
He explained that the conference also sought to mobilise adequate resources to physical educational infrastructure in the Islamic Mission Senior High/Technical and TVET schools, saying: “Our schools require standard classrooms, computer labs, dormitories and other boarding facilities to improve academic environment.”
In a brief history, Alhaji Abubarkari explained that the IMS was established by the late Sheikh Adam Mohammed Apeadu, an Islamic scholar and facilitated Islamic teachings and interpretation in the local Akan dialect.
The objective of the IMS is to bring Islamic believers together to build Islamic schools and health facilities and to support national development, without solely depending on foreign donors and partners, he stated.
Alhaji Abubarkari said: “Through the IMS schools, we will nurture, train and mould Muslim children in a godly manner and thereby bring them up to become responsible and patriotic adults and leaders who can help solve emerging societal problems.”
Hence the establishment of the Islamic Mission Technical Institute (IMTI), a TVET institution at Duayaw-Nkwanta five years ago to provide technical and vocational training skills.
He said presently the school had over 300 students and stressed the need for the Mission to expand its physical infrastructure to absorb more students.
Alhaji Abubarkari appealed to government and other corporate bodies to support the infrastructure development of the school.
Alhaji Abubarkari said the Mission had established many basic schools, nationwide, “as one of our committed endeavours to contribute to national development,” besides clinics, hospitals and other health facilities.
He said: “We seek to produce professional teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, lawyers, professors with diverse knowledge to contribute to progressive national development”.
Mr Seidu Iddrisu Yeboah, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Deputy Secretary of IMS, also told the GNA that the IMS was also engaged in a school-farming project and had acres of cashew, oil palm and livestock.
The project offered practical training to students in farming and also improved its Internally Generated Fund (IGF) for educational and social intervention programmes, he stated.
Mr Yeboah said the IMTI was the first Islamic technical school established in the country, and offered courses in fashion design, auto-mobile, building and construction, and agricultural to ensure self-employed graduates.
GNA
Edited by Dennis Peprah/ Christabel Addo
20 Dec. 2025
Caption: Picture shows Alhaji Abubarkari
