The word “crisis” in the above title is put within inverted commas, because there really was never a hijab crisis, truly so-called, in Osun schools; and there is none today. At least, that was the main claim in my article last Tuesday on this column, entitled, “The true story about hijab in Osun” (The PUNCH, June 28, 2016).
In the present article, I provide some statistical data to back up that claim, as requested by some of my readers. Some of the readers are residents of Osun State, who confirmed that they were often surprised each time they read about hijab crisis in their state. I offer the following statistics for them and for others interested in the truth.
There are 622,726 students in Osun public schools, distributed across 1,194 Elementary, 323 Middle, and 241 High schools. The number of Middle and High schools looks small because many of the schools were merged into larger mega schools, following the reclassification of schools. Hijab is worn by female Muslim students above the age of puberty in many of the Middle and High schools, regardless of whether they are Muslim or Christian schools, although many more students in the former wear hijab than in the latter.
The hijab is a veil, covering the head and chest. It is worn by some Muslim women beyond the age of puberty in the presence of adult males outside of their immediate family. It is, therefore, a symbol of modesty and privacy or cultural practice, rather than a compulsory religious garb for all Muslim women beyond the age of puberty. Nevertheless, like other forms of cultural practice, wearing hijab tends to be perpetuated by Muslim families whose female members engage in the practice. This explains why some Muslim families want their female offspring to wear hijab, while others, like Aregbesola’s family, do not bother.
Until a reporter instigated the principal of the Christ African Middle School, Osogbo, to allow her female Muslim students to wear hijab, in accordance with a court judgment, the so-called hijab crisis had occurred only in one single school throughout the entire state, namely, the Baptist High School, Iwo. Government officials and Muslim leaders quickly intervened in the Osogbo case, and that was the end of it.
But let’s look closely inside the Baptist High School, in order to understand the true nature of the controversy there. As indicated last week, BHS houses five merged secondary schools, namely, BHS, Baptist Grammar School, United Methodist, St. Mary’s, and St. Anthony’s. The last three of these schools came into the merger with hijab-wearing female Muslim students.
The initial resistance by the Baptist Mission to the merger spilled over to the resistance against hijab wearing. The problem was, however, resolved, after the intervention by the government and Iwo community leaders, and female Muslim students, continued to wear their hijab, until politicians got under the skin of some Christian leaders. This happened as preparations got underway for the 2014 governorship election, leading to the first concocted hijab crisis.
The incident occurred on Tuesday, February 4, 2014, and it involved 353 students out of a total student population of 2,123, over 50 per cent of whom are female. On that day, a total of 261 female Muslim students wore hijab, while a total of 92 Christian students (male and female) wore various robes, including choir outfits, revealing their religious affiliations. The BHS was the only school throughout the entire state, where such an incident occurred. Hijab wearing continued, without any hoopla, in the rest of the state, including the other secondary schools in Iwo town.
Yet, the press was ready to go to town with various stories and provocative headlines, such as “Osun schoolchildren in religious war”. Other headlines drew attention to “hijab crisis”, “uniform crisis”, or the like.
Nevertheless, Governor Rauf Aregbesola did not take things for granted. He quickly visited the school to douse the tension and also set up a panel to investigate the incident and make the appropriate recommendations. The panel concluded that the merger of various schools, which suddenly brought hijab wearing to the BHS provoked some resistance by the Baptist Mission, which was able to draw other Christian missions into the fray. This initial resistance made Christian leaders a soft target for political manipulation against Aregbesola and his school re-classification project. However, after the government’s intervention, the school allowed female Muslim students to continue to wear hijab as was the practice in other schools.
Before Aregbesola came on board, the subsisting regulation regarding hijab was contained in Article 8.2 (v) of a 2004 document, entitled, Guidelines on Administration and Discipline in Osun State Public Schools. It states that the use of hijab by female Muslim students shall be allowed in Muslim public schools with the proviso that it shall not be made compulsory, especially for non-Muslim students in such schools. Although the document recommended against the wearing of hijab in Christian schools, that recommendation was never enforced by any administration, because there were many Christian schools with a majority of Muslim population. That’s why hijab wearing by female Muslim students continued unabated in Muslim and Christian schools throughout the state.
It was the resistance to hijab wearing by the Baptist Mission, supported by some other Christian leaders, that led a Muslim students association to approach the court for arbitration in 2013. The court ruled in favour of hijab wearing in 2016, but suggested that the hijab should be in the approved colour of the school uniform in order to minimise its distinctiveness.
It was this court ruling that led to the second hijab controversy in the same BHS. By the time the second incident occurred on June 3, 2016, the school population at the BHS had increased to 2,500. Yet, only 41 female Muslim students wore hijab on that day, while only five Christian students wore church robes. Investigations revealed (1) that the students were instigated by some Church leaders, some even without the knowledge of the students’ parents and (2) that most, if not all, the Christian leaders behind the controversy have no children in the school.
The resistance by the Baptist Mission to Aregbesola’s school restructuring may not have been reasonable, (1) given the government’s take-over of the mission schools since 1975 and (2) given the Muslim majority in the school as in other Iwo schools, where Muslims account for over 70 per cent of the student population; it is nevertheless real for some parents and a fertile site for contestation for others.
It is most unfortunate that some religious leaders would use schoolchildren to achieve political or religious objectives by inciting them to rebellion, instead of encouraging them to learn tolerance in addition to knowledge and skills.
In writing this article, two events crossed my mind. One is the visit by Pope Francis last November to a mosque in Bangui, Central African Republic, besieged by Christian militias to deliver a message of reconciliation. After removing his shoes and bowing towards the holy Muslim city of Mecca, the pope told the people inside the mosque that “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters … Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself”.
The second was a flashback to Temple University, Philadelphia, where I taught for over 20 years. I recalled the few female Muslim students in my classes over the years, some of whom wore the hijab in a university that started out from the Baptist Temple in 1884. Its founder, Russell Conwell, was a popular Baptist minister during his time. I hope it will not take the Baptist Mission in Nigeria over a century to understand that a child’s education should not be sacrificed for religious zealotry.
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