Hijab: Stop Behaving Like You’re Elected To Protect Muslims, CAN Tells Kwara Gov

…Asks Gov To Order ‘His Hoodlums’ To Stop Attacking Christians

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has asked the Federal Government to hold Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq responsible for the violence that broke out in Kwara State on Wednesday over hijab-wearing by Muslim students in Christian missionary schools in the state.

CAN, in a statement made available to THE WHISTLER on Wednesday, said the “violence and bloodletting” resulted from the hijab policy declared by AbdulRazaq’s administration.

“We learnt that the State government has ordered the reopening of the closed schools without resolving the crisis and consequently, churches and mission schools are being vandalised with impunity by the hoodlums banking on the state government’s support in the pretext of enforcing the policy. Some innocent Christians are being violently abused and attacked under the watch of the Governor who is playing ostrich,” said CAN general secretary, Joseph Bade Daramola.

The Christian body said Governor AbdulRazaq should be blamed if the violence should degenerate, “because it was his pronouncement on the issue of hijab wearing in violation of the court directive on the matter to maintain status quo until the matter is finally resolved by the court that led to this trouble.”

It said, “Wisdom is required by those in leadership to handle sensitive issues such as that of religion so as not to precipitate war. If any damage is done to any church or anyone is injured on this matter, the Governor of Kwara State will be held responsible.

“It is disheartening and unfortunate that a government that was installed democratically will become insensitive to the plight and the yearning of the people as if the governor was voted into the office primarily to protect his own religion. This is unfair, ungodly and reprehensible.

“There are public schools and schools that belong to some Islamic organisations where those who wanted to be wearing hijab can be attending without causing the ongoing needless crises rocking the state.”

CAN further called on Governor AbdulRazaq to order, “his hoodlums to stop attacking mission schools and churches in Kwara State before the situation degenerates into an unprecedented religious crisis. We also call on the Federal Government and the Inspector General of Police to ask the Kwara State government to respect the rule of law in order to avoid a chaotic situation.”

Meanwhile, THE WHISTLER earlier reported that the police in Kwara State had denied that violence broke out in the state on Wednesday.

“There is no violence in Kwara. What happened was that there was a government policy regarding Christian missionary schools that were said to have been taken over by the state government [over] the issue of female Muslim students wearing hijab and owners of the schools declaring that [they] would not allow that to happen.

“Yesterday, the government declared that the schools should be open today after being closed for the past two weeks over the same issue. And we the police are here on security and we ensured that we deployed our men to all the schools to prevent any break down of law and order,” DSP Ajayi Jeffrey, the Kwara police PRO, told THE WHISTLER in a phone interview.