by Gimba Kakanda on FaceBook
On religion, the Yoruba nation has shown a remarkable progressive disposition to their diversity over the years, with Islam and Christianity cohabiting in their region with less dramatic conflict.
This isn’t to say that it’s been a perfect harmony, but compared to what obtains elsewhere, with the dominance of Muslims in the North and the equal dominance of Christians in the East, the west of the southern region symbolised the hope of our union as a sovereign state.
Recent development in Osun state has set this group on a path that is familiar to us, witnesses to the implications of inter-religious superiority contests.
What’s even devastating is, the conflict is over a harmless dress code that is an everyday reality of the Muslim woman. The hijab doesn’t pose any danger to anyone, and it also doesn’t impede on exercises of the rights of anyone. Which is why it’s confusing that a Christian group finds it unacceptable that hijabs are worn to school.
The decision to wear Church garments to school in competing with the Muslims has only reduced by half the IQ of the leaders of Christian Association of Nigeria in Osun. They seem to trick the poor kids into believing that hijab is ceremonial, like church garments.
We have seen policewomen of Muslim descent in institutionally defined and organised countries like the United States decked in hijab, as it is harmless and poses neither threat nor discomfort to their organisation. Here, we have a legion of mischievous religious leaders desperate to identify smoke where there’s no fire in the first place.