21st November, 2022
MURIC TO NUC:
STOP OPPRESSION OF MUSLIM STUDENTS IN CHRISTIAN PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES
A call has gone to the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) to take
necessary steps capable of stopping the oppression of Muslim students in Christian-owned
private universities. The call was made by the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC).
The group alleged that Christian proprietors of private universities have
consistently subjected Muslim students to forceful conversion via compulsory
attendance of church services and denial of personal identity by disallowing
use of hijab.
Making the call on Monday, 21st November, 2022 was the
director of MURIC, Professor Ishaq Akintola.
He said:
“Private universities owned by Christians in the country have become
torture chambers for Muslim students. The Muslim students cannot form any
association on the basis of their own faith in those schools. They have no
spaces for their prayers. They are forced to attend the church on campus as
attendance is marked by the authorities. Muslim students who fail to go to
church are sanctioned. This smirks of religious apartheid. It is therefore
unacceptable.
“It is noteworthy that such private universities do
not bear Christian names. Therefore Muslim students have no foreknowledge that
they are seeking admission into Christian-owned universities. They are deceived
into applying, paying acceptance fees and the school fees proper without being
told that the institutions are owned by Christians or that they would be run
according to Christian teachings.
It is after they have packed into the hostel and started attending
classes that the school authorities start issuing odd rules. We see this as
unfair, deceitful, fraudulent and non-transparent.
“MURIC calls on the National Universities Commission (NUC) to intervene
in this issue. Private universities should be true to the conditions of their
approval by the Federal Government and their registration by the NUC. They
should not be allowed to change the goal post after the game has started.
“They must be compelled to follow due process and to obey the rules of
the land. No private university should make rules that will subject students to
inhuman conditions. Forceful conversion by forcing Muslim students to attend
church services is a gross violation of the letter and spirit of the Nigerian
constitution.
“They get away with this pernicious, degrading and dehumanising practice
by claiming that they are private institutions. But the 1999 Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes the Nigerian Constitution the font et
origo of all laws, rules, regulations, directives, memoranda, etc to the
effect that no rule emanating from any other source shall override its
provisions.
“Chapter 1,
Part 1, Section 1(1) & (3) of the 1999 Constitution stipulates: ‘This
Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all
authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.’
“In
particular, Section 1(3) says, ‘If any other law is inconsistent with the
provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that
other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.’
If this is so and if
Nigeria is not paying ordinary lip service to its own laws, the provisions of Section 38 (i) & (ii) which provides that ‘every
person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion,
including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone
or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and
propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance’
should be made to apply to Christian-owned private universities which have
turned their institutions to religious apartheid enclaves for Muslim students.
“Muslim students need NUC’s protection from the feudalistic spiritual slave
masters of contemporary time which Christian private universities have turned out
to be. Compliance with religious freedom and religious tolerance rules are some
of the conditions which NUC should consider before issuing certificate of
approval to private universities.
“Every individual or group, whether Muslim or
Christian seeking to establish a private university should be made to sign an
undertaking guaranteeing religious freedom. In addition, NUC should review the
approval clauses of all existing private institutions in the country with a
view to making them sign the same undertaking. This is necessary because Christian-owned
private institutions are behaving as if they have the power to change the faith
of their students as they wish.”
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
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