Muslims all over the country will rise up, if need be, to challenge the decision by the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, to ban the use of long hijab (veil) in orientation camps, the Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, warned on Wednesday.
The NYSC Director-General, Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, had while receiving a receiving Muslim youth under the aegis of Muslim Youths in Da’wah in his office in Abuja on Tuesday, said the ban was necessitated by “security reasons”.
He was quoted as saying:
"The security situation in the country is tough. There is the danger of somebody using hijab for other reasons. There have been cases where young girls put on hijab and eventually turn to suicide bombers."
But MURIC, in a statement by its director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, rejected Olawumi’s reason for the ban of hijab, urging him to purge himself of Islamophobia.
“The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) rejects the purported ban. It is reckless, baseless and preposterous. No public officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should speak in such manner.
“The pronouncement smacks of power drunkenness. It is a hate statement. The Director General needs to purge himself of Islamophobia”, Akintola said.
The group insisted that security reason was not enough for the NYSC boss to ban the use of hijab because there are examples of armed robbers using police uniforms to rob.
“Has anyone thought of banning police uniform? About forty armed robbers dressed in army uniform attacked six banks in Agbara, Ogun State last week. They killed a policeman and a pregnant woman. Should we ban army uniform because of that?” MURIC queried.
“Brigadier General Johnson and his ilk are hiding under the security challenge facing Nigeria to implement a hidden agenda, namely, to stigmatise Muslims and to embarrass our daughters and wives who wear hijab.
“Is General Johnson aware that female Muslims in the British police use hijab on top of their uniform? Can he tell us how the hijab disturbs a corper’s uniform?
“Does the DG know that hijab is an integral, nay, the most vital part of a female Muslim’s dress? Does he know that female Muslim corpers feel as if they are unclad when disallowed from using the hijab? Is he aware of the psychological trauma such female Muslim corpers go through?
“How can we spend a lifetime training our daughters to dress decently and you dehumanize them in your camp within 24 hours? How dare you?
“We affirm that we will use every constitutional means to stop this religious apartheid against Muslims in the name of discipline and regimentation.
“Why must Muslims face persecution everywhere in Nigeria? Why can’t the Nigerian system accommodate and integrate the Islamic culture? Why can’t Nigerian officials allow Islamic landmarks to stand pari passu with British colonial and Christian culture?
“Is Nigeria truly independent or is it a banana republic created to serve only the interest of the British imperial masters? Must Muslims be forced to accept British Christian mode of dressing?
“We must ask who designed Nigeria’s school uniform? Who designed the army and police uniforms? Was it not the British? What is the religion of the British? Is every Nigerian in the same faith? So why can’t we allow the Muslims to retain their identity? Why can’t the Muslims enjoy religious freedom in this country?
“Why must Muslims be forced to dress like Christians? Why must Muslims be denied the dividends of democracy? Any policy that fails to carry us along is exclusive. Nigeria is for all of us. We reject an NYSC that promulgates anti-Muslim decrees.
“We remind the DG that he cannot turn Muslims in NYSC camps into slaves. This is not military rule. NYSC officials, including the DG will be acting ultra vires if they take actions which violate the laws of the land.
“Section 38 (i) & (ii) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees religious freedom. We seek the enforcement of this right.
“Yet the hypocrisy of the system has been exposed. Can the NYSC Director General explain why the NYSC allows female Muslim corpers in places like Kano and Sokoto to use the hijab while their counterparts in the South are harassed and intimidated?
“Why this double standard? Is the ban only meant for the South? Or is it further proof of the mythological ‘Northern-Muslim and Southern-Christian dichotomy’? It had better not be.
“We hope it will not get to a point when Nigerian Muslims will decide to opt out of the NYSC service year. Yes, we may have no other option than to ask our daughters to ignore an institution which targets them for ridicule, torment and persecution.
“MURIC charges the NYSC to revisit its rules. Any aspect of those rules which fails to respect the faith of Christians, Muslims or traditionalists should be expunged. Such rules are draconian and counter-productive. They only serve the interest of neo-imperialists.
“We appeal to the National Assembly to save Nigerian Muslims from annual embarrassment in NYSC camps. Our daughters are being derobed in public courtesy of a system that is blind to sociological realities, a system that has allowed itself to be enslaved by the culture of the colonial master.
“We call on the Director General of the NYSC to desist from precipitating a religious crisis of monumental proportion over the hijab saga. Nigeria has enough on its hands already. The DG should stop stirring the hornet’s nest.
“We insist that Nigerian Muslims cannot be intimidated. Nobody should test our will. Nigerian Muslims have the capacity to mobilize for peaceful protests in all NYSC camps across the country if the molestation of our daughters continue. Enough is enough.
“We did not bargain for an NYSC that has been hijacked by religious bigots and Muslim-haters!
“MURIC has a duty in loco parentis to cry out against the persecution of female Muslim corpers. They are our daughters and also our members. We charge all Islamic organizations in the country to rise to the occasion.
“We cry out to our mothers-in-Islam in the Federation of Muslim Women Associations of Nigeria (FOMWAN), the Criterion and all other female Muslim organizations. It is taboo for a woman to ignore her child’s cry! Muslim women arise, the slave masters are dragging our daughters in the mud”, Akintola said.
MURIC called on all female Muslim corps members to continue to use their hijab as it is their “Allah-given fundamental human right”, noting that it is presently keeping its ears to the ground to hear if those it termed as “unscrupulous elements” will snatch the hijab from the “heads of our daughters or those power drunk officials who will expel them from NYSC camps”.
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