Kwara state reopens 10 Christian Colleges shut over Hijab crisis

The Kwara state government has announced the reopening of 10 Christian Colleges involved in a recent hijab controversy for the third term session today, Monday, 12 April.

The 10 grant-aided missionary schools involved in the controversy were shut down by the state government on Feb. 19 for safety reasons.

The affected schools are C&S College Sabo-Oke, St. Anthony’s Secondary school, Offa Road, ECWA School, Oja Iya, Surulere Baptist Secondary School and Bishop Smith Secondary School, Agba Dam.

Others are CAC Secondary School Asa Dam road, St. Barnabas Secondary School Sabo-Oke, St. John School Maraba, St. Williams Secondary School Taiwo Isale, and St. James Secondary School Maraba

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development, Kemi Adeosun, in a statement on Sunday said the decision was to bring students in the schools to meet up for the period when their schools were shut.

”This is to inform parents/guardians and teachers that the 2020/2021 Third Term Academic Session for the 10 schools affected in the recent hijab debate starts on Monday, April 12. This is part of the government’s efforts to bring the students in these schools up to speed in whatever they may have missed when their schools were shut.

”The resumption date for other schools not affected by the brief closure of schools is Monday 26th, 2021, as had earlier been communicated,” Adeosun said.

According to the permanent secretary, all the teachers and staff of the affected schools should resume duty and commence classes immediately.

She, however, noted that the Monitoring and Inspection team of the Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development would be going round to ascertain compliance.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has accused the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) of nursing bad intention towards Muslims over the hijab saga.

The Muslim rights advocacy group was reacting to CAN’s latest statement in which it said Muslim female soldiers were free to wear hijab on military uniform if that would deflect bullets.

MURIC’s allegation came through a statement issued on Monday, 12th April, 2021 by its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola.