Group Condemns Calls To Ban Hijab In Nigeria

The Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN) has condemned calls to ban hijab in northern Nigeria.

The Nigerian civil rights group warned that any ban of such kind would offer no solution to the problem of the Boko Haram extremism currently plaguing the northeast.

The association admonished the Nigerian government to maintain the focus in its fight against insurgency and not be “distracted by those calling for the ban on the use of hijab”.

The national president of the FOMWAN, Mrs Hajia Amina Omoti made the call on the government to seriously tackle insurgency. She also urged Muslims in the country to resist any attempt to ban hijab in Nigeria.

“It is diversionary and any attempt to implement it will be resisted by all well-meaning Muslims in the country,” the FOMWAN leader said.

The call for the ban on hijab in northern Nigeria was heightened when Boko Haram attacks by hijab-wearing female suicide bombers, or males disguised as women in hijab, increased. The calls to ban the religious outfit angered Nigerian Muslim leaders, who rejected the call to stop and search Hijab women under any circumstances.

Mrs Omoti frowned on the latest security lapses in Nigeria and its neighbouring countries. She then called on the Muslim ummah to keep calm and continue to be orderly, peaceful citizens of the country.

“The attention of the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN) has been drawn to the ongoing debate and unsolicited advice to government in different print and electronic media on the need to ban the use of Hijab.

“FOMWAN as a Muslim Women organization is concerned at the unfortunate use of young and innocent girls wearing Hijab to create havoc in the North Eastern part of Nigeria; this is sad and worrisome,” a statement from the FOMWAN reads.

Islam see hijab as an obligatory dress code, and not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations. Nigeria, one of the world’s most religiously committed nations, is divided between a Muslim north and a Christian south.

Muslims and Christians, who constitute approximately 55 % and 40 % of Nigeria’s 172 million population respectively have lived in peace for the most parts of the country.

But ethnic and religious tensions have bubbled for years. This often fuelled by decades of resentment and suspicions between ethnic groups, especially southerners, mostly Christians, who are often at logger heads with migrants, and settlers from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north