Group asks Osun to implement ruling on hijab in schools

•Christian youths kick

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has urged the Osun State government to give vent to the court ruling on wearing hijabs in schools, urging her to ignore the threat from the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

The group in a statement yesterday by its Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, cautioned the Governor Rauf Aregbesola administration against succumbing to intimidation having fulfilled all righteousness.

Akintola therefore, urged, the state Ministry of Education to ensure immediate compliance, adding that: “Hijab samples should be sent to all schools. The ministry should show the political will for implementation. Undue delay and disobedience of clear directives by school heads should be treated as insubordination and met with stiff punishment as contained in civil service rules.”

The don decried the threat by the state chapter of CAN to order Christian students in public institutions to don church garments if government implements the June 3, 2016 ruling of Justice Oyedeji Falola of the state High Court which sanctioned the wearing of hijab in all public schools in the state.

He said the threat was tantamount to contempt of court.

Meanwhile, the youth wing of CAN has said it is not opposed to wearing of veil in schools but was against the donning of the Islamic dress code in institutions originally owned by the missions.

CAN noted that wearing of hijab to Christian mission schools, forcibly taken over by the military government in 1975, would negate an agreement entered with the owners that the culture, tradition and heritage of the schools would be sustained.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Osogbo after its emergency meeting, the wing noted that both Christian and Muslims have been living together peacefully in the state, saying the issue of hijab should not be allowed to cause disaffection among adherents of the two religions.

In a communiqué signed by its state chairman, Owo-Ofe A.N and state secretary, Evangelist Popoola Timilehin, they urged Governor Aregbesola to do the needful in the interest of peace in the state.