SO IT'S NEVER WRONG TO WEAR HIJAB IN PROTEST?

This is Aisha Yesufu, an activist who's always at forefront of any kind of protest organized to draw attention. For me, she's just an attention seeker and a noisemaker who gives priority to seek the attention of the media either for self gratification or humanity; that's her cup of tea.

I'm not saying my view about her or rather the intention of this write-up isn't to center on her personality but to look at the conception of hijab by overly majority of non-Muslim southerners.

The word hijab is an Arabic word which means to cover, or something that covers another thing. It simply means a woman to cover her body from others to see her figures in order to protect lechers and amoral persons from their evil plot. If I may, it's a way of protecting the dignity of a woman. There is no specifiable kind of hijab for women to wear in Islam. Wearing such hijab doesn't harm any other person and will not hinder her from doing what she wants.

We have seen many non-Muslim southerners try so hard to fight hijab for public servants, like the recent lawyer, Firdaus Amasi (in the above picture) who was discriminated for appearing in hijab. I still can remember how the schools I woked for here in Kaduna vehemently fought hijab as though it's something that will stop the students from learning or tarnish the image of the school. A principal who I debated in 2017 once told me students with hijab looked dull!

Now that Aisha Yesufu wanted to join the EndSARS campaign to end police brutality which is measuredly championed by southerners, they didn't even see her hijab as something weird or bad to be in their midst. She has become a heroine and an example of how a hijab Muslim participated in the course. That's not just amazing but surprising even though someone who knows Nigeria pretty well knows that she (and her hijab) could also be rejected after the peaceful protest ends.

This will teach you one lesson, those fighting the hijab don't have any reasonable reason doing so, constitutionally or religiously but ethno-religious sentiment. It is never about south or north; Islam or Christianity, its about Nigeria which is bigger than everyone's opinion.

It's hight time we stand against religious indiscrimination with a concise & educational debates to make those with bad thing about others' religion understand that in a country like Nigeria, everyone is entitled to exercise and enjoy section-4 of the constitution.