Hijab: As CAN Media War Rages on

It started with The Punch, The Nation and now, The Guardian, Vanguard and the Sun. Of particular interest to TMC is the poorly written article from Shiekh Ray Wikipedia Ekpu, entitled ‘Unveiling the Hijab.’


And as the TMC release was hitting the public Vanguard newspaper did not only tell naked lies, it goofed big time. It was indeed ‘good’ job for the pay.

In its Comment on page 18, entitled: “Averting religious crisis in Osun” Vanguard wrote: “The CAN had appealed against the judgment and ordered Christian pupils to wear church robes to classrooms in the meantime”.

It is unfortunate that Vanguard did not justify its pay in this shoddy Comment because CAN has never appealed the judgment.

Again, in its failed comment. Another error “we totally abhor Governor Aregbesola’s quixotic and dangerous religious adventurism in Osun… His untiring efforts to push his personal religious agenda in schools have stoked tension which could boil over any time unless sanity is allowed to prevail in the state.”

It is disheartening that Vanguard was paid to proclaim imminent war in Osun when he said the Governor “push his personal religious agenda”, I don’t know why has forgotten to realized that the court gave judgment and not government policy.

Daily Sun opinion page of 22nd of June entitled: The hijab Controversy in Osun was not any better. While it adroitly landed by asking CAN to approach the higher court to set the judgment aside, it stylishly preached that status quo remains meaning, jettison their rights in the interest of ‘peace’, while the oppression and the denial of hijab continues.

Wale Sokunbi in her opinion threw caution to the wind by calling a well researched judgment of Justice Jide Falola ‘controversial’. In her words, the judgment ‘is a recipe for anarchy, as students of all faiths may decide to start coming to school in their different religious apparels.

She ridiculously posited that student adherents of other traditional religions may begin to come to school with their occasional, “red and white apparels, divination beads, palm fronds and calabashes filled with kolanuts, red oil and other items…

Sokunbi, a supposed columnist of high standing incredibly claimed hijab could lead to subtle propagation of religion and accused judiciary of bias when she said, “the state judiciary should not be seen to be promoting the use of paraphernalia of any religion in school.”

The most saddened is where Vanguard said “students of baptist high school, Iwo, who wore church garments and choir robes on their uniforms in reaction to the hijab, were denied entry into the school premises,” when the same Vanguard had previously celebrated the photos of students in choir robes sitting together with their colleagues in the classrooms unhindered, in the front page of one of its edition.

In a clear display of editorial incompetence, rather than appeal to CAN to seek redress at the court, Vanguard ignorantly “recommend out-of-court settlement” for a case that had already been decided!

Now, coming back to ‘honorable’ Shiekh Ray Wikipedia Ekpu’s article in the Guardian: ‘Unveiling the Hijab,’ the author surely cannot be the popular professional Ray Ekpu that we know. Else, the phenomenon will only lend credence to a saying that: it is hard to justify falsehood without inventing many other lies to cover it up.

No doubt, The Muslim Congress has taken the ignorant author to the cleaner with a rejoinder, unveiling, it will spring no surprise if the Christian-dominated media in Nigeria fail to publish it. After all, The Nation refused to publish a similar rejoinder against its ‘Curious Verdict’ about a week ago.

This is a wake up call to the Nigerian Muslims. They need to wake up to the evil plots of the Nigerian media, painstakingly exposed in my book, ‘Muslims and the Threats of the Media’.

This year Ramadan is quite a hard time for the Ummah. It is indeed very unfortunate, that as Muslims strive to contain and expose the evil of the ‘sponsored Sheikh’ called Habeeb Adam Al Ilory from within, external detractors are using the media to bastardise the sancity of an Islamic symbol, hijab.

As it had been in the past, Islam will definitely survive this new wave of attack. Victory will surely kiss our feet, with strong bond and a united voice. This is where the relevance of the ignoramus called ‘Laa Jam’ah’ pale into insignificance. Or how would this kind of challenges have been confronted in isolation?

Hence, more than ever before, the time is now when Islamic organisations must jettison their differences and work together to fight for their common interest. This is when Nasfat, Qareeb, Ansar-ud-deen, Nacomyo and others stand up to be counted. This ideological battle must be fought and won, once and for all.

If Muslims refused to do the needful, Allah’s promise to raise another set of people who will do it perfectly shall certainly come to pass.

Rasheed Abubakar can be reached via: fb.me/rawshield123