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From Lateef Dada, Osogbo
A Muslim group, Joint Muslims Action Forum (JOMAF), has cautioned Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State not to heed the call by the Catholic Bishop of Osogbo Diocese, Most Rev. John Oyejola, to return public schools to the missionaries.
The group described the call by the Bishop as “not only uncalled for, but also ill-conceived, unfair, and unfortunate, and warned Governor Adeleke against heeding the call.”
A statement jointly signed by the chairman and secretary of JOMAF, Kola Uzamat and Qaasim Odedeji, yesterday, said the call by Bishop Oyejola during his visit to the governor on Friday, was a call for anarchy.
Noting that the taking over of schools in 1975 by the government was done with compensation, the group recalled that successive governments had spent huge government’s resources in building infrastructure and training of personnel for those schools with tax-payers’ money.
“After the taking over of schools by the government in Nigeria, especially in the South-West, which unarguably is dominantly Muslims, the Christian churches still continued laying wrongful claim to the ownership of those schools using the influence of school administrators, who are majorly Christians to continue to deny Muslim students their fundamental rights, stopping the Muslim girls from the use of hijab and denying the teaching of Islamic studies.
“Meanwhile, succour came the way of Muslim children when they became more educated and enlightened, thereby challenging the status quo through legal means, which has led to legal victory in the recent years when court made several pronouncements on the right of Muslim students to practise their religion, especially the use of hijab by female Muslim students.
“The aftermath of the challenge of the status quo in those public schools is the call for return of schools to their former owners by the Christian leaders under the pretence of ‘a way of revamping educational sector’ as made to Governor Adeleke by the Catholic Bishop of Osogbo Diocese.
“When we do not dispute the fact that everybody is entitled to his opinion, such advice should be made in good faith and should not be one aimed at subjugating the interest of other citizens.
“Therefore, JOMAF sees the call by Bishop Oyejola for return of schools to missionaries as an attempt to return the schools to dark old age when the right of Muslim children to fundamental right to practise his religion and manifest same was always trampled upon.
“We state clearly that Muslims in Osun are more educated, more enlightened, and more sophisticated, and will not take anything that is capable of subjugating them and rendering them as second citizens in a state where they have equal rights.
“We call on peace-loving Governor of Osun State not to listen to ill-advice to return the schools to missionaries in order not to put the state on avoidable crisis,” the group said.
