Muslim clerics storm Osun schools seeking to enforce court ruling on wearing of hijab

altABOUT 25 Muslim clerics on Osun State besieged the St Charles High School in Oshogbo in a desperate bid to enforce a court ruling on the adornment of the hijab by female students of the Islamic faith in schools across the state.

 

Earlier this month, Muslim bodies won a court case in which they sought to get an order compelling schools to allow female adherents of the Islamic faith to wear hijabs to class. However, Christian bodies and missionary schools have objected to the ruling, saying it seeks to Islamise the state and the development has created tension.

 

Yesterday, the clerics went to St Charles and Ife Oluwa Middle School, both in Oshogbo around 8 am to enforce the court order. However, the principal of St Charles, Anthony Famoriyo, informed them that he could not fulfil their request because he was yet to be directed by the Osun State Ministry of Education on the hijab ruling.


Mr Famoriyo said he told them that no teacher would prevent any student from wearing the hijab the moment they received such directive from the state government. However,  some Islamic followers were seen forcefully enforcing the use of the hijab on those identified to be Muslim girls in the school, while some of them were prevented from entering its gates because they did not adorn the hijab.

 

Owing to the melee caused by the clerics, academic activities in the school were disrupted as a group of Muslim youths stormed classrooms to stop the teachers on duty. Governor Rauf Aregbesola stated that neither himself nor his government ordered the use of the hijab by female Muslim students in public schools across the state.

 

Governor Aregbesola challenged those who had accused him of ordering the use of the hijab by Muslims schoolgirls to produce concrete evidence to substantiate their claims. He also challenged those accusing him of plunging the state into a religious crisis to present a video, voice recording or written speech evidencing where he commanded or ordered female Muslim students to wear the hijab with their uniforms.

 

He averred that all programmes introduced into the state’s education rebranding were the resolutions that came out of the education summit organised by his administration shortly after coming into office. Governor Aregbesola noted that the resolution of the summit, headed by Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, never considered nor recommended any religion.

 

Governor Aregbesola added: “There is nothing religious in any of our policies and the facts on the ground contradict the claims by the opposition. The choice of my deputy governor tells it all, I knew she was a Pentecostal Christian of the highest order before I picked her.

 

“Everything we have done in the line of education is in line with the resolution of our education summit. Against all speculations, I have not ordered the use of the hijab and I challenge anybody with evidence to come out and show that I have made a proclamation on the hijab."

 

On the Osun school feeding programme, tagged O-Meals, Governor Aregbesola said that the programme had provided the template for national adoption and implementation of free meals in schools, adding that he was invited by the British parliament twice to share Osun’s experience with the world. He held that his administration’s efforts and intervention in education had been massive and that there has been qualitative and quantitative improvement in the performance of pupils and general education of youths in the state.

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