Group threatens nationwide protest over Firdaus Amasa’s hijab controversy
Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, NSCIA, has reacted to the ongoing hijab controversy surrounding the Nigerian Law School.
Recall that a law graduate from University of Ilorin, Firdaus Amasa was denied call to the bar, after she refused to pull off her hijab, which led to her denial from the venue of the call to bar ceremony.
In reaction to the school’s decision, the Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim body, Salisu Shehu in a statement accused the Nigerian Law School of lawlessness and Islamophobia.
Shehu confirmed that the group will embark on a nationwide protest, and a fierce legal action should the law school fail to rescind its decision not to call the affected graduate to the bar.
The statement reads in part; “On the 13th of December, 2017, a young female Nigerian graduate of Law, Miss Abdulsalam Firdaus Amosa, was prevented from joining her colleagues for the momentous call to bar ceremony at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. Her only offence was that she wore a hijab under her wig. For this unpardonable ‘crime’, as it was deemed, she was wrongfully denied the opportunity of being called to the Nigerian bar as Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria with her colleagues though she had passed all her exams both at the University and the Nigerian Law School.
“The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) views this unsavoury development with grave concern. It is the height of Islamophobia displayed by the authorities of the Nigerian Law School, the Body of Benchers and the Council for Legal Education who now willfully break the law. This is very unfortunate and shameful because those who are supposed to be teaching justice and fairness now fail woefully to be just and fair. With or without sentiments, by refusing to expose her hair in public contrary to her religious injunctions, Miss Abdulsalam has not broken any law. No law is superior to the Nigerian Constitution which is the grundnorm of Nigeria.
“Basically, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees Nigerians their freedom of religion. There is a constitutional basis that holds and upholds the use of hijab as a fundamental and constitutional right of Muslims in this country. According to Section 38, Subsection 1 of the Nigerian Constitution (as amended in 2011), “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…(either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance”. Therefore, without equivocation, the constitutionality of hijab is incontrovertible.
“Besides, there are many instances of judicial pronouncements on the unconstitutionality of denying Muslim ladies the right of using hijab. For instance, in suit no ID/424M/20004 concerning Abidemi Rasaq & ors V. Commissioner of Health, Lagos State, the Lagos State High Court ruled that a circular of the Lagos State School of Health Technology banning students from wearing hijab is unconstitutional. Similarly, in suit no CA/IL/49/2009 involving the Provost Kwara State College of Education Ilorin V. Basirat Saliu, the Appellate Court ruled that the use of hijab by female Muslims qualifies as a fundamental right under Section 38 of the Constitution.
“It beggars belief that the Islamophobic posturing of the Nigerian Christian establishment is legendary even if this dates back to the Christian colonial past and its vestiges. The hatred for Muslims and Islam appears to be a virulent cancer that has spread across the body of those who use religion to oppress and deprive others of their religious rights.
“For a country that has a majority Muslim population that is fully conscious of the grounds it had lost due to the Christian colonial rule and cultural imposition of the past, taking a lot of infractions against Muslims is not borne out of docility. The dignified taciturnity of Muslims in the face of oppression in Nigeria is borne out of the premium Islam places on mutual co-existence and peaceful living.
“Those who make false appeals to the “secular” nature of Nigeria when the issue of Muslim rights is raised are guilty of paranoia, hypocrisy and myopia. We have maintained that Nigeria is a multi-religious country and that cannot be controverted. Those who are quick to drop the “secular” verbiage can afford to be flippant because the Christian system violently imposed on Nigeria by the colonial masters adequately provides for and serves their interests, certainly not the interest of Muslims.
“While religious rights are being granted without any ado in countries where Muslims constitute negligible minorities in America, Europe and other parts of Africa, it is unspeakably ludicrous that Muslims are being denied, debased and violated in a country where they constitute a sizeable chunk of the population. It is the height of intolerance that rational and objective Nigerians know that any time Muslims demand their constitutional rights which the Christian colonial system had stripped them of, the infantile, reactionary and vociferous elements within the Nigerian elite and their brainwashed followers always cry wolf where none exists.”
