Months after the utilization of Hijab by female students was ostracized in all public primary and secondary schools in Lagos State, a Lagos High Court in Ikeja has fine-tuned September 26 to distribute judgment in a suit filed by the Muslim Student Association of Nigeria against the Lagos State Government.
Counsel to the students, Mr Gani Adetola-Kaseem in his arguments in court yesterday Friday July 4th maintained that the essence of wearing Hijab by Muslim females is to obviate them from tempting people of the antithesis sex or being tempted by them and additionally to bulwark their chastity. Continue...
The lawyer additionally insisted that it is indispensable for all Muslims who have procured puberty to participate plenarily in the practice of Islam, including Islamic dressing mode, worship and fasting.
He submitted that from the Islamic perspective, womanhood is tenacious not by biological age or espousement but by the time a person has procured the age of puberty. This age he verbally expresses varies between individual. Some females procure puberty as early as the age of nine years while others procure puberty at age 13 or more.
The lawyer therefore urged the court to grant the application because the position of the Lagos State Government breaches the religious rights of the applicants and it is the obligation of the court to bulwark them.
In his replication, the counsel to the State Government, Mr Lawal Pedro, argued that the wearing of uniforms in public primary and secondary schools is for identification of students from different schools in Lagos and additionally to embolden a sense of unity, discipline, organisation and orderliness amongst the schools.
He withal submitted that the clamour and authoritatively mandate for the compulsory utilization of Hijab on top of the school uniform by Muslim girl students in Lagos is a recent development.
Two Muslim students, of Atunrashe Junior High School, Surulere, Lagos State, Miss Asiyat Abdulkareem and Miss Maryam Oyeniyi, had filed the suit through their fathers – Alhaji Owolabi Abdulkareem and Mr. Suleiman Oyeniyi.
In the suit, they claimed that the restriction of the utilization of the Hijab, breaches their fundamental human rights.
They withal argued that vetoing female students from utilizing Hijab on or outside the premises of any inculcative institution in Lagos State “is wrongful and unconstitutional”.
The defendants in the suit are the Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaye; the Commissioner for Inculcation, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye; and the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Culture, Mr. Oyinlomo Danmole.
