Kwara Crisis According to Hijab.

By Elempe Dele, Benin.

Kwara State has lately been involved in a religious controversy concerning the use of the Hijab in Christian missionary schools. I was asked to speak on it in a local gathering peopled by teachers, thinkers, journalists, writers, pastors, conspiracy theorists and even notorious individuals with whom I will never be able to share emotive romance. I readily accepted the opportunity to openly interrogate the idea since it’s religion and secularism.

CAN Asks Kwara Governor To Withdraw His Approval Of Hijab Wearing In Christian Schools In The State.

The issue is simply this; the management of the missionary schools in Kwara State refuse to allow Muslim students to wear the Hijab to their schools because the schools are not Muslim schools. And the Muslim in the state felt the Christians ought to be tolerant of the harmless Hijab. The issue has been debated in all parts of the world as it was a reminiscence of the ban on the Hijab in French schools some years ago.

Although the National Assembly has proposed a bill titled Religious Discrimination Prohibition Bill, from the tonal angle of the title, I am less convinced it will be in the favour of missionary schools.

As a Sceptic, I have a conviction that there should be a period in the development of a young mind when religious perceptions should not be forced into the mind. The parents or society should allow the child to grow enough to make religous choices and decisions.

I think there should be a ban on religious attachments like the Hijab or Songs of Psalm as inherited from the colonial masters. Yes, the educational space of instructions must be cleansed of all religious manifestations. The young mind does not need those, rather let them learn foreign languages, history and elementary components of the sciences. This will equip them for the world ahead of them. Most times, religions mutate them into incurable fanatics, and there is not societal regulatory mechanism order such minds as soon as they are set in motion, to destroy mankind.

In any school, there should be a symbol of practical onesnes of the students, and this should just simply be the school uniform. This will be the leveler; the children of the poor, the Christian or the Muslim, even the children of the idol worshippers must all be measured on their uniforms.

If any parents however cannot conform to this, they should take their kids to special schools; either an all Muslim or Christian school where they can freely wear religious attachments or sing hymns.

Apart from this, I think the issue of this Hijab is coming at a delicate time in the history of our nation where the unity is at its most fragile state ever. The debate is provocatively unnecessary. It is like a declaration of hostility by those who wish to wear the Hijab to Christian missionary schools, something they will not allow in a Muslim school if a Christian child goes there with such religous mandates without fatua horning over him or her. Whatever would have been any religous positive of wearing the Hijab has been negated by the physical crisis that followed the declaration of hostilities. I think the consciousness of these youthful minds would not really mind if they wear the Hijab or not…their parents are the ones fueling the war without their consent.

As been recorded in some quarters, the governor, who himself is a Muslim, is forcing the missionaries into capitulation. This must be condemned totally and replaced by dialogue. Dialogue is one of the philosophy of education; the ability to dialogue can resolve this impasse.