Ta'awunu Human Rights Initiative blasts FUNAAB for banning veil
A human rights group, Ta'awunu Human Rights Initiative has faulted the management of Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB) for banning female Muslim students from using veil.
Some female Muslim students were prevented from writing examination recently because they wore their veil into the examination hall.
The Director-General of the organisation, Sulaymon Tadese said the veil worn by women is part of dressing of Muslim women and girls in accordance with Allah's injunction that females should conceal the faces.
Tadese said the decision of the university baning female Muslim students from using veil amounts to denying them of the right to practice their religion and an attempt to cause religious crisis in the institution.
He also noted that different courts of record have given judgements that the use of veil is not prohibited in Nigeria and not a criminal act.
He called of the Vice Chancellor of the University Professor Olusola Kehinde and the Dean of the Students Affairs Professor Oluseyi Ojekunle to respect the court verdict and desist from harassing female Muslim students wearing veil.
According to him, "even in the Northern part of the country where there are serious security challenges, veil is allowed within the ambit of recognized limit in which female security personnel check and frisk anyone wearing the veil."
In a press statement, the group said "The University has over the years disregarded the use of veil by Muslim women in the University premises as it categorised veil as indecent dressing and outrightly outlawed its use within the tentacles of the University to the extent that the university authority even erected a bill board having a woman in veil depicted as dressing indecently to that effect.
"Notwithstanding, the University continues to engender varying degrees of insinuation and allegations against the use of veil to disparage, demean and relegate the dressing in order to justify the ban it has placed on it by lamely identifying security reasons.
"Even in the Northern part of the country where there are serious security challenges veil are allowed within the ambit of recognized limit and ensure female security workforce are employed to check and frisk anyone wearing the veil.
"In this light, we are aware of the ridiculous statement credited to the Chief Security Officer of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta saying the University has no female Security personnel to check Muslim women in veil, as a way to make use of veil impracticable in the University premises. This statement if true, smacks of insincerity and further exposes the institution as one poorly managed in terms of gender sensitivity in employment.
"We are aware of how the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta Prof. Olusola Kehinde has been been inflaming the tender national security through the Dean of the Students Affairs Prof. Oluseyi Zaccheaus Ojekunle to deride and deny freedom of religion in a Federal University despite the plethora of Judgment of the Federal High Court, High Court, and Court of Appeal to the effect that University cannot and has no power to ban the use of face veil in the University premises.
"We are equally aware of how 2 students were chased out of the Examination hall and another was denied entry into the University premises and could not write their examinations as scheduled.
"We believe the act of the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta and the Dean of Students Affairs is the Crescendo of insurbordination and rascality to the law of our land as well as a contempt against the verdict of a court of competent Jurisdiction in Nigeria and would not go unpunished for such gross misconduct and abuse of office.
"We believe the Federal Ministry of Education, Department of State Security Service and other concerned Law enforcement agencies will not allow the Vice Chancellor Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta Prof.Olusola Kehinde and the Dean of Students Affairs Prof. Oluseyi Zaccheaus Ojekunle plung the serene and peaceful Abeokuta into turmoil and destroy their efforts in promoting religious tolerance for a violence free Nigeria and the maintenance of National Unity in diversity."