Group tells schools to obey court order, leave hijab-wearing students alone

The Court of Appeal, on July 21, 2016, held that the 1999 Constitution guarantees the fundamental human right of wearing hijab.

The MSSN made its comments via a statement released by its Lagos Amir, Saheed Ashafa.

The statement reads:

“Though, we do not expect any teacher to act to the contrary, if they do, we urge our members to ensure that they resist removing the hijab with their own hands.”

“They should ensure that the teacher or overzealous principal do it themselves. And after any of the education stakeholders does that, he or she should be prepared for legal and mass actions.

“It will not be fair for any tutor-general, principal or teacher to order any student to remove their hijab; such action amount to committing contempt of court.

“A situation where a principal or teacher will be seen punishing, threatening, assaulting or harassing a student for wearing hijab, after the judiciary has granted it, will amount to not only contempt of court but a betrayal of literacy, ridiculing of education and an abuse of reasoning.

“We plead that all the stakeholders in education should be law abiding and practicalize what they have been teaching us as students. We commend our teachers for their efforts from inception and hope that as students’ resume, they will not demonstrate to us how to disobey the constitution and judiciary.”

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The Ikeja High Court, on October 17, 2014, banned the use of hijabs in the state’s public schools but the Court of Appeal ruled that the ban was discriminatory.