The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) is demanding the sack of the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School for alleged discrimination against hijab-wearing students during the ongoing final examinations.
The Law School had denied barring female students wearing hijab from the examinations.
Reacting, MURIC Executive Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, dismissed the denial as false and “demeaning, nauseating, shocking and unbelievable.”
According to him, although the D-G allegedly gave verbal directives against hijab, there are written instructions from Law School campuses flowing from that directive.
“How can Law School deny the undeniable? We have copies of written instructions from campuses based on her alleged verbal directives. Those written instructions are incontrovertible,” he said.
“Where did those campuses get authority from? Did the D-G query them for issuing unauthorised instructions? This alibi holds no water.”
Akintola said the denial itself proves the D-G knows the action was wrong, noting that Part B, Rule 5 of the Nigerian Law School Code of Conduct for Students recognises hijab as acceptable attire for female Muslim students.
“The alleged verbal instruction stands in contradistinction to the Code. Yet she allegedly went ahead and gave directives to the contrary. Such action can only be traced to a mindset,” he said.
He accused the D-G of harbouring prejudice against Muslim students.
“We are constrained to assume that the D-G hates the sight of Muslims in hijab. She probably regards them as a nuisance. Causing humongous distractions at examination centre could be one of ways to get at hijabites. Psychological destabilisation is an effective way of causing irredeemable distraction.”
Akintola said the D-G has created imbalance between Muslim and Christian candidates.
“Until this discrimination began last Saturday, students saw one another merely as students, not as people belonging to different faiths. She put Muslim students under intolerable tension, which must have affected their performance, whereas Christian candidates sat leisurely.”
He therefore called on Council of Legal Education to set up a probe panel and asked the D-G to recuse herself to allow for free, fair and transparent investigation.
“The D-G should be sacked if she fails to resign for unnecessarily dragging the good name of the Law School into this matter, for denying the hijab hullabaloo and for coming into office with anti-Muslim mindset,” he added.
