Follow up thread to:
https://www.nairaland.com/6468697/hijab-red-meat-bigotry-farooq#100045319

Saturday, March 27, 2021

 By Farooq A. Kperogi

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

People who don’t understand the imperative of lexical economy that column writing imposes on columnists wondered why I didn’t write more than I did last week on the hijab controversy in Ilorin and why I didn’t suggest ways out of the problem I analyzed.

First, as much as this is a legitimately religious issue, it is really mostly a social class issue. Most upper-class and middle-class Muslims send their daughters to private schools where the hijab isn’t even an option, and they don't mind. And many wealthy Christians have no problems with the religious restrictions in prosperous Muslim societies like the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

Only the children of poor people attend public schools where the hijab excites passions, where the politics of public displays of religiosity is invoked as a wedge issue. Wealthy people and their children don’t give a thought to this.

As I pointed out in my August 6, 2016 column titled “Nigeria as a Perverse Anarchist Paradise,” parents with even modest financial capacity have learned to not send their children to government-funded schools because public education has now become the graveyard of learning and creativity.

“This is precisely where the intergenerational perpetuation of social and economic inequality starts,” I wrote. “Only the children of the desperately poor go to government schools, which are hardly in session because teachers aren’t paid salaries. This ensures that children of the poor stand no earthly chance of breaking from the cycle of poverty and social oppression into which they are born.”

Nonetheless, we can’t ignore a controversy because we think it’s contrived or politically motivated. As I admitted last week, the hijab has evolved as a legitimate accoutrement of female Muslim identity all over Nigeria. It is unhelpful to simply dismiss it as foreign or a consequence of an emergent Islamic fanaticism because it didn’t exist before now.

At the same time, Christian resentment against the wearing of the hijab in historically Christian missionary schools is justifiable, in my opinion, in light of the fact that the schools started out as private Christian schools which, even after being nationalized, observed the traditions of their original owners for decades. 

So, the root of the problem is the inexcusable takeover of the schools by the Yakubu Gowon military regime in the 1970s. The Gowon regime expropriated Christian missionaries of their schools in order “to provide stability, satisfy people's basic educational and national needs, combat sectionalism, religious conflict and disloyalty to the cause of a united Nigeria.”

State governments adopted and adapted the federal law that nationalized missionary schools, with many of them in southern and northcentral states allowing the missionary schools to retain their rituals— and playing a prominent part in the appointment of key administrative staff. In Baptist Grammar School, my alma mater, for instance, no Muslim has ever been appointed a principal even though the school has been fully government-owned since the 1970s.

But missionary schools that were taken over by the government are still essentially public schools. No more, no less. Their staff are paid by the government. That’s why when teachers in public schools go on strike, all missionary schools in Kwara State grind to a halt.

So one of the most effective solutions to the nagging controversy over the wearing of the hijab is to lobby the National Assembly to repeal the federal law that nationalized Christian missionary schools. The law was obviously informed by a post-Civil War obsession with “national unity” and curricular uniformity. That imperative no longer exists. Curricular standardization and national cohesion can be achieved without the appropriation of private schools by the government. 

What is more, several private missionary (including Islamic) and secular schools have been established after Christian missionary schools were nationalized in the 1970s, but such schools haven’t been nationalized likewise. Whatever justified the takeover of the missionary schools in the 1970s should extend to private schools that were established after the fact. If the government hasn’t found the need to nationalize schools that were established after the takeover of missionary schools in the 1970s, it should denationalize those that it did forthwith in the interest of fairness and equity. 

I am aware that many governments in states where Christians enjoy numerical and symbolic dominion have returned Christian missionary schools to their owners. But as Miracle Ajah of the National Open University of Nigeria pointed out in his Stellenbosch Theological Journal article titled “Religious education and nation-building in Nigeria,” state governments that returned mission schools to their owners did so through mere memoranda of understanding, which have no legal force.

“Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is not a law and cannot amend or repeal a valid law,” he wrote, pointing out that “the current trend in the return of mission schools stands on a false foundation, which an ambitious regime could overturn any day.”

That risk is almost zero in states where Christians are a majority, but it is always ever-present in a predominantly Muslim state like Kwara, which has never had an elected Christian governor, except for the Olusola Saraki-engineered brief governorship of Cornelius Adebayo in 1983 to spite Adamu Atta whom he also installed, since the 1970s.

The only logic that sustains and justifies the demand to accommodate hijab-wearing Muslim girls in historically Christian missionary schools is that the schools are public schools that are funded by public patrimony. I would be surprised if the Supreme Court rules that public ownership of a previously Christian mission school is not a sufficient justification to allow Muslim students to wear the hijab as part of their school uniform.

That means the only way to resolve this issue isn’t through the Supreme Court but for the law that made these schools public schools to be repealed. There’s no other way.

Of course, the denationalization of missionary schools will have an immediate adverse effect, which isn’t too much price to pay for peace given the violence that has attended the controversy. At least in the short term, enrollment will decline, and many teachers will lose their jobs. We have already seen that in some states where schools were returned to their owners. 

Take Ogun State as an example. Ajah’s article shows that “in Abeokuta South Local government, where six schools were said to have been handed over to the original owners by the government, the total school enrolment of these schools in 2008 was 12 663. But by 2010, after the hand-over, students' enrolment dropped drastically to 401 for the simple reason that school fees were high. Consequently, 12 262 students could not get access to secondary education. In Ijebu Ode, enrolment dropped from 8 729 in 2008 to 876 by 2010.”

As a parent in Ogun State who displayed a protest sign that read "Missionaries are now Capitalists” told Christianity Today in early 2012, “These schools are not for the poor; they are too elitist, even members who donated toward their establishments cannot send their children there. They should have told us they are running profit-oriented schools from the outset instead of using the word mission to raise money, get public support, and turn around to become unaffordable.”

But this is no reason why governments should hold on to schools that don’t belong to them, particularly when doing so is increasingly inviting communal distress and disruption. No law of nature says missionary schools should subsidize education for people. It is governments that have a responsibility to build schools, subsidize education, and allow religious groups to give expression to their sartorial rituals if doing so isn’t disruptive. 

Before an enduring solution is found for the hijab problem, it helps to remember that no Muslim girl will lose her faith if she doesn’t wear a hijab to school nor will any Christian’s faith be hurt because a Muslim girl wears a hijab to school. That realization should inspire greater inter-faith tolerance.

https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2021/03/how-to-resolve-hijab-controversy.html?m=1#.YF6u6Cigq1w.twitter

What is more, several private missionary (including Islamic) and secular schools have been established after Christian missionary schools were nationalized in the 1970s, but such schools haven’t been nationalized likewise.

Yet they are the ones formenting trouble,trying to enforce their belief on others.

There's a big different between a rich Muslim and a poor Muslim. The both may attend the same mosque , read the same Quran, but their reasoning is far different.


Most of the Islamic laws only have effect on the poor Muslims and not the rich. The rich Muslims dont give a fucck about this hijab. Go to Northern Nigeria and see how female muslim kids who are from wealthy homes move around with not even a scarf on their head and even if you see them used it, it's always moderate and transparent. But the poor ones move around with one smelling long hijab like soutane always.

Islam religion is really a big burden to the poor Muslims.

Most upper-class and middle-class Muslims send their daughters to private schools where the hijab isn’t even an option, and they don't mind. And many wealthy Christians have no problems with the religious restrictions in prosperous Muslim societies like the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

Only the children of poor people attend public schools where the hijab excites passions, where the politics of public displays of religiosity is invoked as a wedge issue. Wealthy people and their children don’t give a thought to this.

Of course the hijab or strict religious laws are meant for the poor hapless adherents.Imagine the kind of dress Ajumobi, Ribadu and Aregbesola daughters wore for their wedding.What about the president's family?,

Recent picture of Yusuf buhari wife
She wore no hijab
Hijab are for poor people
How many times have you seen daughter of the so called politicians with hijab

Talking from both sides of the mouth. Your article last week gave you out on religious mode betraying your secularism garb. This latest article you have been your thoughts last week on this issue. I am sure you had a rethink after backlash from so many people.

If wearing hijab is a right of muslim woman, then I ask:
1. Why are muslim female VIO officials not wearing yet?
2. Why are muslim female Fire Service officials not wearing yet?
3.Why are muslim female NSDC officials not wearing yet?

In fact, Road Safety, Police, DSS, and all the armed forces formation women, why are they not on hijab?

What is stopping these bigots to change the first chapter of the constitution that states that Nigeria is a secular state.

Omo this guy made sense for this one

That is if the trouble makers will listen.

Ok o

The article is superb and sensible enough.

—Hijab is a fundamental right of a Muslim girl who choose to wear it and it will be demeaning that at this age, we are denying them the right to expression of their religion.

—Currently, those missionary schools are public schools financed by the government and this gives every religion the right to enrol in it because their taxes are used to finance the school.

—Thirdly, to be fair to the Christians, those schools were their creation before the government took over. They also have the right to say they don’t want hijabs in those schools to maintain tradition BUT the Muslim girl also have the right to wear her hijab devoid of discrimination in a school of learning.

—Hence, to stop this back and forth, the government should return the Christian schools back to their owners where they can have the luxury of administering it as an almost private entity where their tradition can be enforced. Any Muslim that chose to go to the school then must conform 100% to the Christanic tradition and any Muslim parent that chose to foment trouble should be arrested.

—Lastly, the government can build more schools in the area affected to accommodate the vast number of students that will be out of school or try to accommodate them in schools closer to the affected area in the interim before they complete that.

Personally, it hurts that we can be bickering over these things we ought to have gotten over at this age and time.

Ok
Pls, if I ever sent you a file of how to install google play on your Huawei y7p on whatsapp, pls share it with me again, my phone got wiped.

Take Ogun State as an example. Ajah’s article shows that “in Abeokuta South Local government, where six schools were said to have been handed over to the original owners by the government, the total school enrolment of these schools in 2008 was 12 663. But by 2010, after the hand-over, students' enrolment dropped drastically to 401 for the simple reason that school fees were high. Consequently, 12 262 students could not get access to secondary education. In Ijebu Ode, enrolment dropped from 8 729 in 2008 to 876 by 2010.”

What is a secondary school doing with 12,663 students?... no wonder the teaching standard kept dropping..

Religion has divided us.

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Hmm

Did the government nationalize the churches inside those schools also,
muslim brothers kindly thinks about that?

Nigeria has a long way to go

one of the most effective solutions to the nagging controversy over the wearing of the hijab is to lobby the National Assembly to repeal the federal law that nationalized Christian missionary schools. The law was obviously informed by a post-Civil War obsession with “national unity” and curricular uniformity. That imperative no longer exists. Curricular standardization and national cohesion can be achieved without the appropriation of private schools by the government.

China and Japan don't worship our God yet they lead the world... Religion will always make Africa backward

Hmmm

Muslims are perpetual trouble makers where there is peace

If hijab is an identity for Muslim woman why can’t our muslim women in security agencies wear hijab on their uniform ? ?

Hijab isn’t part of the Nigeria security agencies uniform so it’s not allow likewise hijab isn’t part of the missionary school uniform so it won’t be allowed

If you want your wards to wear hijab send them to Muslim schools where hijab is part of their school uniform. It’s very SIMPLE

Them use wahala/trouble swear for Muslims. Wetin self ?

Religion is for the poor, the rich has no religion

Fanatic everywhere.

Nothing to resolve jere,Muslims student can enroll in any government school and continue wearing the overall,missions schools are religious cos they exist to educate students spiritually and otherwise ,so what is the business of a Muslim child going to Christian school,if I can't worship in the mosque why should I send my wards to Muslim school if am not looking for trouble...even though government is running the schools and so what? Christians also pay taxes to government,so they are not doing the missions schools a favor ...Why are women in our security environment not wearing the overall? Are they not paid by government? This matter is not worth all this noise

Hahahaha, this confused columnist or writer at work again. Kwara state beginning to look like Turkey, those who know history and have read about it will attest to this fact.

Anigreat:







There's a big different between a rich Muslim and the poor Muslim. The both may attend the same mosque , read the same Quran, but their reasoning is far different.


Most of the Islamic laws only have effect on the poor Muslim and not the rich. The rich Muslims dont give a fucck about this hijab. Go to Northern Nigeria and see how Muslim female rich kids move around with not even a scarf on their head, but the poor move around with one smelling long hijab always.

Islam religion is really a burden to the poor Muslim.

Exactly!