Africa Speaks — Page 19
The following is the text of Address delivered by Amirul Mo'Menin Hazrat Mirza Nasir Ahmad, the Khalifatul Masih III, the Supreme Head of World Ahmadiyya Muslim Organization at Mapo Hall, Ibadan, before a mixed audience of intellectuals, University students and members of the Ahmadiyya Community on the 13th of April, 1970. Great Sons of a great Land, Assalam-o-Alaikum, Greetings of peace to you all. I cannot tell you how happy , am to be with you and in your great country. West Africa generally and Nigeria especially arose in my con sciousness when I was ten or eleven, about fifty years ago. It was then that the first Ahmadiyya Muslim Missioner and educator set foot on your soil. Travel was then difficult and distances very long. The enterprise of a solitary visitor coming here to set up schools and mosques and community centres seemed so romantic. Since then, as many of you would know, more and more people, out of our part of the world, have come to work here in your midst. Our contacts have increased. So have mutual know ledge and confidence. The accounts of your country and people we received and read in the 1920s fired our imagination and I for one have ever longed to see things for myself and meet the people whose hospitaility and kindly interest we have enjoyed since those days. Finding myself here I find a dream fulfilled. I have become aware of your history, of your 18