Hijab: Kwara Muslim stakeholders disagree with ex-Minister Abdullahi

Muslim stakeholders in Kwara State have disagreed with a former Minister of Youth and Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, on his position on the raging hijab controversy in the state.

The group, in a press statement made available to Daily Trust on Monday, advised that the hijab issue should not be used by politicians in the state to glorify themselves unnecessarily.

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To this end, the Muslims leaders want political leaders to always say the truth and stand firm by the ‘rule of law’ instead of politicizing issues that are purely based on fundamental human rights and respect for the Nation’s Constitution and enabling laws of the Country.

In the release that was dripping with venom, the Chairman of Muslim Stakeholders’ of Kwara State, Alh Ishaq Abdulkarim, noted that if the previous administrations of Dr Bukola Saraki and Abdul-Fattah Ahmed had addressed the problems, it would not have lingered up till now.

The Former Minister, who was a one-time Commissioner for Education in Kwara State, had claimed the issue being tackled now are not new but were well managed and never led to the closure of schools when they were in office.

Abdulkareem described the question asked by Abdullahi that “would any Muslim parent prefer using of hijab to the education of their children” as a wrong, unpatriotic and smacks weak approach to the issue, as the matter of hijab concerning the fundamental human right and ownership of Schools has to do with a court judgement both at the Ilorin High Court and the Court of Appeal.

He noted that the present administration in Kwara has to obey the ‘rule of law’.

”No responsible Government would not shut the schools where Plaintiff (i.e. Kwara CAN) that lost its cases in two superior courts of record abandoned the due process of proceeding on appeal to Supreme Court but threatened ‘fire and brimstone”, it added.

While thanking the Kwara State Government for the temporary closures of the affected schools to protect lives and property, Abdulkarim described Bolaji Abdullahi’s statement as reckless and unbecoming of a patriotic Nigerian who should stand by the ‘rule of law’, and protection of innocent lives and property and defence of the truth, adding that the ‘mess’ left behind by the past administration he belonged to, is the one being cleared by the present administration of Mal. Abdul-Razaq Abdul-Rahman.