With many young people particularly teens losing faith in religion and questioning the relevance of faith-based institutions, Alfa Adewale Monsuru, Founder of the ICMY Computer Institute scholarship programme in Lagos, is imparting digital skills to this demography, proving that faith-based institutions still have the potential to deliver great value to the society, and that it takes just one visionary individual to make a difference.

It has been nine years in a row since the Islamic Centre for Muslim Youths founder Adewale Monsuru started hosting attention-grabbing graduation ceremonies attended by a mix of religious communities in the Itire community in Lagos State. The fact though is that ICMY Institute, which is a nonprofit targeting idle youths before they get snatched into the curves of exuberance and simply just playing too much, came to life as a strictly Islamic faith-based effort.

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But in a diverse society like what is to be found in the megacity of Lagos where Itire is positioned 10kilometres away from the main centre that is dotted by newly-constructed bridges or upgraded highways, people tend to want to pull together for their survival and that is what the ICMY team did and is paying off for everyone involved.

Two female Lagosian friends Atanda Aisha Opeyemi and Azeez Nimota Damilola met in this circle and immediately started to become fond of each other. Meiza Nigeria caught up with them during the latest graduation event, which took place on Sunday 15 December 2024.

Miss Nimota is a slim dark-skinned teen. I am so thankful to the man who organised the institute. May God continue to raise your hand, reads an appreciation from her.

The journey of this friendlies and the bond that grows them go beyond having same-religion similarities. They helped quell notions that one religion drives the other over at ICMY – that is simply just not the case.

Everyone interacts. They make conversations, take in different perspectives than their own and round the moves up soaking themselves into up to 10 computer-related skills regularly being taught there. For the next learning session, says founder Adewale, there are plans to expand to areas focusing on explaining advanced Artificial Intelligence algorithms being developed to a newer class.  

Although there was the strictness of their trainers to endure when they got drafted for the scholarship, everything worked out for good. I have mastered a lot of things, Miss Nimota further shows. One of the skills she has gained is organising data using Microsoft Excel software, which is directly connected with what she enrolled to study at a sub-tertiary learning environment.

Bringing them all in for skills acquisition

What white-veiled Atanda Aisha Opeyemi told Meiza revealed her emphasis on the fruitlessness of being without the technological capacity to work and deliver service. Nowadays – in this economy – it is about technology. Without technology, I don’t know how you are going to make money.

It is for the direct opposite of building up finance that a different graduate and beneficiary, Master Adeniji Ayomide Anthony made the cut. He said he signed up at ICMY Computer Institute in September 2023. Before his enrollment, Anthony often engaged in his favourite sport football, which he had the resilience and intense appetite to play all day. So, what saved him?

I joined because I finished secondary school last year and there was nothing for me to do. My dad does not want me to go out to work so that I don’t get enticed by money, although it still ends up being about the love and passion for just that – monetary gains – anytime this particular graduate speaks to his uncle who has built a successful career in imagery and branding, which happens through the graphic design skill he had built.

As the nephew just opening up to the world of computers even though the desire to learn has long always been there, he is trying to replicate the focus that enabled his uncle to succeed, but first, he needs a computer based on what the uncle shared in a tête à tête.

They have actually changed my life because I was a playful Jonah. But now I am serious because my dad has already bought me a laptop. So, most times I am at home studying online and going through things. Before I could not type on the system, but now I can do that.

Anthony summed up that although there were things he could not do prior to his enrollment, but now I am moving forward. And based on that forward-looking approach comes the voice of Alfa Adewale Monsuru who largely sees an event improving every year that goes by.

Future nerds emerging from the streets of Itire

Every aspect, down to how the graduation ceremony is administered, the master of ceremony and course outlines, got a facelift, and he thinks the evidence showed with the sequenced flow of things.

It is an endless journey driving the knowledge into those who would not be able to get it in the first instance. Those in this demography do not get to graduate with the set they started because they won’t have met the bar set to indicate that computer intelligence in the learner has been upgraded.

And so, it happened that the total number of 107 enrollees graduated but the figures don’t cover the actual specifics when talking about the entries.

Despite all the challenges, says Alfa Monsuru, those that are not capable to have their certificate today, we try to withdraw them and also move them to the coming batch because the programme is for a year and they have to make sure that they undergo all the course outline before we can free them.

We make sure we monitor their activities and also ensure that the purpose of their coming is realised.

For this year, we made sure that what we impart to them based on the mode of the training, we make sure we develop ourselves as the trainers. At least 70 percent of the training is practical while the remaining quota goes to theories.

Beneficiaries also get to pull parts of a computing system apart and stick them back together as a shift away from absorbing strictly software knowledge.

This consideration actually brings people far and wide much closer. Just like Prince Adeolu Adedayo Junaid showing up for the graduation ceremony with his sister and her daughter, Miss Elizabeth Odunuga. At the Itire Primary School parking lot where the graduates gathered to receive their certificate of completion, Prince Junaid cuts the figure of both father and uncle to the beneficiary.

It was the uncle’s familial consideration that led to all three members of one unit being present at the venue that is barely kilometres from the Onitire of Itire’s palace on Kabiyesi Street. We are having a daughter of ours graduating here. Pointing at his sister standing next to him as Meiza interviewed, Prince Junaid said: It is a daughter to her but let me say she is also a daughter to I also, because she stays with me.

During the period, Miss Elizabeth living with her uncle, had been asked if she was interested in computer training whatsoever, and in her response, she said yes, alright, which then commenced the journey into being a future ICMY graduate who now has the digital world at her feet.

The mastery process is only still growing, but beneficiaries generally felt good over the satisfaction of at least starting and setting things in motion. Without any doubt, it is a much better place compared to the starting point 12 months back.

Meiza Nigeria