MURIC demands sack of Law School DG

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has demanded the sack of the Director General of the Nigerian Law School over what it called discrimination against students wearing hijab.

The school has denied discriminating against female students who wear hijab during the ongoing Law School final examinations.

But MURIC’s Executive Director, Prof Ishaq Akintola, described the denial as a lie, saying it is demeaning, nauseating, shocking and unbelievable.

‎Prof Akintola said: “How can Law School deny the undeniable? Although the DG allegedly gave verbal instructions to that effect, we have copies of written instructions from Law School campuses based on her alleged verbal directives. At least those written instructions are incontrovertible.

‎‎”By the way, where did those campuses where written instructions on removal of hijab were issued get their authority from? Did the DG query those campuses for issuing unauthorised instructions? ‎Law School should look for another alibi. This one holds no water.

‎”Nonetheless, this denial shows that the Director General (DG) knows what she did was entirely wrong. The alleged verbal instruction stands in contradistinction to the Nigerian Law School’s Code of Conduct for Students, which recognises hijab under Part B, Rule 5 as acceptable attire for female Muslim students. Yet she allegedly went ahead and gave verbal directives to the contrary. Such action can only be traced to a mindset.

‎”We are constrained to assume that the DG hates the sight of Muslims in hijab and does not believe that wearers of hijab have the right to wear it. She probably regards them as a nuisance that she must get rid of, and causing such humongous distractions at the examination centre could be one of the ways to get at the hijabites. Psychological destabilisation is an effective way of causing irredeemable distraction.

‎”The current DG cannot create a balanced playing field for Muslim and Christian students, particularly during critical examinations like the call-to-bar final examination. Until this discrimination began last Saturday, the students saw one another merely as students, not as people belonging to different faiths.

‎”She manifested this gross bias during the ongoing examination by putting Muslim students under intolerable tension, which must have affected their performance, whereas Christian candidates of the same examination sat down leisurely and were able to do their best without let or hindrance. But now she has created a situation where we cannot confidently say that examiners can correctly and fairly assess victims of this harrowing experience.

‎”The DG has proved beyond reasonable doubt that she holds deep prejudice against hijab-wearing female Muslim students.

‎”We therefore urge the Council of Legal Education to set up a probe panel to investigate the hijab imbroglio. We further demand that the DG recuse herself to allow the probe panel to conduct a free, fair and transparent investigation.

‎”This DG 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 an anti-Muslim mindset.” (The Nation)