17th February, 2020
PRESS RELEASE:
MURIC TO WAEC: CHANGE YOUR ANTI-MUSLIM
SOFTWARE
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has
complained that its office has been inundated with reports from Muslim
students, their teachers and parents that the software of the West African
Examinations Council (WAEC) being used for capturing during registration always
malfunctions with hijab. The human rights group therefore suspects that the
application was deliberately designed to automatically reject hijab. As a
result, MURIC has called on WAEC to review the software by making it
hijab-compliant.
This was revealed in a statement
distributed to the media on Monday, 17th February, 2020 by the
director of the organization, Professor Ishaq Akintola.
According to the
statement, “Reports from state branches
of MURIC concerning capturing for 2020 WAEC registration has been alarming and
disappointing. In faraway Minna, Niger State, at the Hasha International School,
students had issues with capturing in hijab. The same
reports came in from several secondary schools in Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Lagos, etc
and it resulted in the officials asking Muslim students to remove their hijab
for capturing since, according to them, the hijab was not being captured by
WAEC’s software.
“Here lies the riddle. Several questions come to our minds and it
appears only WAEC can answer them. So, over to WAEC. Muslims pay the same
amount for WAEC as all others. Why are our daughters being victimized? Why are
they being set aside for embarrassment? Why must their religion become a source
of discomfort for them? Why are the Muslim parents being made to go through
psychological trauma?
“And now to fundamental issues that are directly
connected to WAEC’s software in the questions. Who designed the software? Why is
the software not capturing the hijab used by Muslim female students? Why would
it be designed specifically not to capture Muslim females wearing hijab? Are we
saying Muslim children cannot be Muslims anymore until they take non-Muslim
identities? Why didn’t the designers of WAEC’s software put the hijab into
consideration ab initio? Was there any test-running before the design was
approved? If there was a test-running, who supervised the test-running and
where is the report?
“MURIC demands
answers to these questions without delay. Controversies over WAEC registration,
stereotyping and maltreatment of Muslim candidates and imposition of
anti-Muslim time-tables have become recurring decimals over the years. MURIC
has intervened peacefully and diplomatically over the years. Yet the
controversies keep popping up year in year out. We warn that Nigerian Muslims
are running out of patience concerning WAEC’s intransigence and its
contemptible treatment of Muslims. This examination body should therefore be
blamed for any breakdown of law and order over its obnoxious and anti-Muslim
policies.
“It is our
considered opinion that WAEC is being used by certain forces to retard the
educational progress of Nigerian Muslims. We also suspect very strongly that
the controversial software is one of the plans of Islamophobic elements to
frustrate Muslims after it became evident that no examination body has the
right to ban Muslim students from using hijab.
“We demand a probe into circumstances surrounding
the development, operation, deployment and application of the software being
used by WAEC with a view to identifying reasons for the constant rejection of
hijab by the software. For a transparent exercise, we suggest the involvement of
the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), a Federal
Government agency, in the investigation.
“We further demand the co-option of a Muslim expert
into the team of investigators. We volunteer to supply the Muslim expert and to
pay for his or her services. We urge WAEC to accept these suggestions as well
as the offer in order to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the examination
body has no hidden agenda against Muslims. He who must come to equity must come
with clean hands.
“To cap the
edifice, we demand quality service for hijab-wearing Muslim students as part of
their Allah-given fundamental human rights. We affirm that something is
fundamentally wrong with a software that constantly fails to recognise a
particular mode of dressing. We strongly suspect manipulation from source. We
therefore demand a transparent probe of WAEC’s capturing software without
delay. This incident must not repeat itself in 2021. A stitch in time saves
nine.”
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
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