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 niqab into the examination hall.
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 their faces.
Tadese said the decision of the university banning 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 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.”
The school is yet to react to the allegation.
