Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola
The lingering crisis rocking public schools in Osun State over the propriety or otherwise of wearing hijab by Muslim students in public schools may have further devastating consequences on the education sector in the 21-year-old state with the sobriquet of State of the Virtuous.
The controversy in the government owned schools over hijab since 2012, which has pit Christians against Muslims, is seen as a factor that may completely destroy what is left of pupils’ poor performance in recent times.
Some students in the state were wearing hijab to public schools before the administration of Governor Rauf Aregbesola but not to schools originally established by Christian missionaries. However, the determination to ensure Muslim students wear hijab to cover their heads and the equal determination by Christians to prevent this in schools established by missionaries is gravitating the state towards the brink of the cliffs.
The Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, had last year warned of the dangers of allowing religion to cause a division among students. Having read about the brewing religious animosity in Osun schools, the Nobel laureate gave the warning at the inauguration of a N750m high school built in Ejigbo, Osun State and named after him by Aregbesola. The literary icon warned that children should not be divided based on their religions because the move to differentiate the young children along their religious beliefs portended a great danger to the unity and peace of the nation. He said the religious crisis in the country and the Boko Haram issue were as a result of intolerance.
Soyinka said, “One of the ways we can reduce this fatalistic sense of holiness is to reduce the element of difference. I wish to implore that we do not distinguish our children by their religions.”
The current crisis which has been described as the Season II of the hijab crisis is assuming a dangerous dimension and there is the urgent need to put out the fire which religious leaders are stoking.
The Deputy Governor, Mrs. Titi Laoye-Tomori, who doubles as the commissioner for education, explained that only schools with Christian names were merged and to buttress her claim, she gave an explample of schools in Iwo where she said St. Mary; St. Anthony and United Methodist were merged with the Baptist High School, Adeeke, Iwo. The new Baptist High School, Iwo, which emerged after the merger is now one of the battle fields where religious leaders from both sides constantly struggle to enforce or stop the use of hijab among pupils.
Not wanting to be left behind in the uniform of confusion especially at the Baptist High School, Iwo, some students added their own dimension to the drama as they dressed like masqueraders to the school in February 2014. Some students would have repeated that at the same school last week if they had been motivated to do so.
The argument among Christians in Osun State is that hijab wearing in all public schools including schools originally established by Christian missionaries is a precursor to the Islamisation of such schools and the whole state.
Most teachers are also obviously divided along religion lines. The teachers are careful not to be seen by fellow adherents of their religions as supporting what the infidels are advocating.
But a teacher of one of the secondary schools in Osogbo, who identified herself simply as Bola, said the current crisis would have negative effects on the pupils if it was not resolved very soon.
The teacher said, “The recurrent crisis over the use of hijab is sad. It does not portray adherents of the two major religions as tolerant and something has to be done before the situation degenerates.
“The problem in the education sector is so enormous and I see this hijab issue as leaving the real substance and pursuing an unimportant issue. Will wearing hijab or not wearing it improve the performance of students in external examinations? The performance of secondary school students in 2015 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination was far from good. The state came 29th and that was the most woeful performance by any state in the southern Nigeria. It is very sad!
“If the problem continues, the performance of the students may plunge further and what do you think will be the future of the majority of the students?
“We are also not talking about students, who have become hooligans and cultists. Teachers don’t feel secure in secondary schools; that is strange. We have more pressing issues to attend to than the hijab controversy.”
The Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers in the state, Mr. Amudah Wakeel, in an interview with our correspondent also expressed concern about the current happenings in Osun schools. He said the crisis would worsen students’ performance except it was resolved quickly.
The NUT chairman said, “There is no place you have crisis that won’t affect people. There will always be victims in any crisis and in this case, the students will be the victims but everybody will be affected in the long run. Teachers will not be able to teach effectively because of fear of invasion of their schools. Students’ minds will not be at rest and their education will suffer for it.
“Lives of teachers will be in danger, they will be afraid that they might be attacked by some hoodlums and this will have adverse effects on teachers’ performance in the class. It will also affect students’ performance and the society at large will suffer at the end. So, the quick resolution of the crisis is what everybody should be after now.”
A former consultant to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Dr. Amiel Fagbulu, while speaking with our correspondent on the issue, said the crisis over hijab would erode discipline among students and engender woeful performance by the students in external examinations.
Fagbulu, a nonagenarian, who served as an adviser to the Asabia Commission which recommended the schools’ take over in 1975, said that reclassification of schools was not new, saying it started in 1961. He said there was nothing wrong with the reclassification policy of the governor, while calling on stakeholders to show some level of tolerance.
He said, “Hijab is like a cap. You can wear a uniform and put a cap on it, you can wear a uniform and put a sweater on it but you cannot wear cassock and say it is a uniform. It is wrong. They are breaking the law by wearing cassocks to schools. Discipline in schools will be badly affected this way.
“The Muslims who go to schools to ensure their children wear hijab have no right to do so. It is wrong!
“Where children are raised like this, they (students) cannot learn. How can they learn when some are wearing cassocks, some wearing choir robes and all that? They are not focussing on learning but are having fun. It will badly affect their performance and that is the truth.”
Worried by the poor performance of students of the South West states in public examinations, the Development and Advancement in Western Nigeria organised a seminar for the six states in the region on how to restore the region’s lost glory in the education sector.
Aregbesola, who delivered a keynote address at the round-table talks on Tuesday, said he was not the one who introduced the use of hijab in public schools in the state and that he had also not implemented the judgement of Justice Jide Falola which allowed Muslim students to use hijab, contrary to the claims of those who he called his adversaries.
The governor said although he is a Muslim, his wife, Sherifat, does not wear hijab neither their daughter. According to him, his traducers are wont to lie against him because of his appearance which shows that he is a Muslim but he said their antics would not stop him from practising his religion. The governor, whose younger brother is one of the pastors at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, said he had remained unperturbed by the orchestrated efforts of his adversaries to demonise him.
Aregbesola said, “There is nothing religious in any of our policies. The fact on ground contradicts our opposition’s claim. The choice of my deputy governor tells it all; I knew she is a Pentecotalist 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 hijab, I challenge anybody with evidence to come out and show that I have made a proclamation on hijab.
“If I have permitted hijab, will the Muslims have gone to court to challenge it? Is that not contradictory? Is it a crime that I am a Muslim, is it because I struggle to be a good Muslim that everything I do is being misunderstood? I think I don’t deserve all these lies against me.”
He further went ahead to score his administration high in the education sector, saying his government had built good schools to replace the dilapidated school structures he inherited and continued with the freed feeding programme in the state, distribution of learning device called ‘opon imo’ and free uniforms given to students among other projects.
He said those who said students’ performance in Osun State was on the decline were not being honest. The governor said the data he presented would put a lie to the “unfounded allegation of our detractors” that the performance of pupils had gone down under his watch.
Aregbesola said, “Our administration started sponsoring candidates for WAEC in 2011. That year, we fielded 53,293 candidates, had 11,672 pass, ( students who scored five credits including English and Maths) representing 21.98 per cent. In 2012, we fielded 51,463 out of which 11,431 passed, representing 22.21 per cent. In 2013, we also fielded 47,013 candidates, recorded 9,301 pass, representing 19.78 per cent.
In 2014, we sponsored 47,672 candidates, 9,316 of them passed, representing 19.54 per cent. The average performance for our first four years was 20.88 per cent. Compared with the average performance (13.26 per cent) of the three years that preceded us, the percentage improvement in performance during our tenure is a huge 57.46 per cent.”
The governor painted a picture of improvement but the statistics he presented to debunk the claims that students’ performance has nose-dived since he came to power is still very poor considering the fact that an average of 20 per cent pass is still a resounding failure anywhere. It is obvious that the sharp division especially along the religious lines on the hijab issue will not help to address the problems facing public schools in the state. Teachers are highly demotivated by the half and irregular salaries which most of them have been receiving for almost a year now. Many students, especially those in high schools, have become terror to their teachers and the teachers dare not discipline some of them. Many people believe that these problems and others confronting the education sector in the state should be given priority and not the needless controversy on an item of clothing.
Meanwhile, the students, who are at the centre of the drama still relate to one another as classmates and friends because they see the confusion as a series of comical misunderstanding. No doubt, the drama playing out in the schools is amusing but it is a matter of time before the seed of discord being sown will germinate and the state and Nigeria will surely be victims of the would-be intolerant citizens being raised now.
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