By Demola Akinyemi
Ilorin — The N1.5Billion fund raising ceremony of the Ilorin Central Jumaa’t Mosque yesterday threw up the  bickering between  two business moguls, Otunba Femi Otedola of Zenon Oil and Alhaji Aliko Dangote of Dangote group.

Alhaji Dangote, the chief launcher at the ceremony had made a brief appearance with a whopping donation of 5% of the needed money,N75M  before he left the venue, but Femi Otedola a co-launcher shortly after, shocked the entire congregation with a donation of N80M, the highest, shooting Dangotes  by N5M.

Over N600M  was realized at the fund raising ceremony.

Meanwhile, President Umaru Musa Yar Adua at the ceremony charged religious faithful to use their religion to promote peace and development instead of acrimony and using religion to cause confusion among their subjects

According to him, “ Islam is a religion of peace and should be strictly adhere with in order to move the nation forward”.

The president who was represented at the occasion by the Minister for Special Duties,  Ibrahim Kazaure said that, Muslims should always use their religion to foster peace and harmony as this would assist the society to develop .

Yar Adua stressed  that the present administration is committed to the sustenance of peace and development asking that  all hands must be  on deck towards maintaining the peace  in order to accelerate the socio economic growth of the country..

He added  that the  efforts of the present  government to develop agriculture is to boost food production  to improve the social well being of the populace.

The president who noted  that, an idle hand is a devils workshop emphasised  that the current effort to develop the sector has assisted the government to reduce social vices among the teeming youths in the country.

Also, the chairman of the occasion, the Governor of Niger state, Dr. Babangida Aliyu said that, there was no doubt that the mosque deserve rehabilitation and called on the people invited for the launch to donate to the growth of the mosque.

Governor Bukola Saraki in his welcome address also believed  that the mosque was long over due for rehabilitation and appealed to the people to donate to the mosque .

He however assured that, all the money realized at the launch would be judiciously utilized for the purpose it  was meant for .