The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has rejected the alleged banning of the face veil worn by Muslim women, popularly known as Niqab, by the management of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, FUNAAB.
A female Muslim alumnus of the university was reportedly forced to remove her veil by the school security men before she was allowed into the institution.
Reacting to the development, the MURIC director, Ishaq Akintola, in a statement on Sunday, argued that no one has the right to ban Niqab, “because the freedom to ‘manifest’ religious belief is enshrined in the Constitution of Nigeria”.
The group said: “No institution of learning, from primary to tertiary, whether federal, state, or even private, has the right to prohibit the use of hijab or niqab. It is a contravention of the provisions of Section 38(i) & (ii) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended which says inter alia:
“‘Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance’
“Furthermore, Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right, (ICCPR) guarantees the right to freedom of religion unconditionally.
“In addition, Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights & Fundamental Freedoms contains a right to have ‘respect for the religious feelings of believers…’ But FUNAAB authorities have no respect for the religious feelings of Muslims. This must stop.
“The problem with some non-Muslim heads of educational institutions and public offices in the South West is that they wrongly assume that they can compel Muslims under them to abide by their own non-Muslim way of dressing.
“They therefore go all out to enact rules and regulations which disallow Muslims from dressing like Muslims. This presupposes that they hate the sight of Muslims.
“We affirm that any rules and regulations which contradict the letter and spirit of the constitution is illegal, unlawful, illegitimate and unconstitutional. This is the import of Chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1(1) & (3) of the Constitution which stipulates:
“‘This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.’ In particular, Section 1(3) says, ‘If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.’
“To that extent, therefore, all anti-niqab pronouncements, memos, circulars, posters, etc issued by FUNAAB are null, void and of no legal effect whatsoever. Same goes for all such declarations and actions in other academic institutions throughout Yorubaland.
