Reject returning schools to missionaries-
JOMAF appeals to Adeleke
.. says it is an invitation to crisis.
The Joint Muslims Action Forum (JOMAF), Osun State has called on the Osun State Governor, Senator Ademola Adegoke to reject the invitation of returning schools to the missionaries in the State.
This was contained in a Press Release jointly signed by the Chairman and his Secretary, Alh Kola Uzamat and Barr Qaasim Odedeji which was made available to the media.
JOMAF stated that the call for return of school to missionaries in Osun State is not only uncalled for, it is ill-conceived, unfair, unfortunate, given malafide and an attempt to corner collective resources of every indigene of the state for the benefit of some individuals and religious groups.
“It is an invitation to serious crisis and the governor should be wary in threading that dangerous path.,” it stated.
“It may be recalled that the taken over of private and faith-based schools by the military government in 1975 was a child of circumstance.
It was done at a time when many of such schools could not be properly managed and the government needed to provide subvention to the proprietors of the schools to assist in building infrastructures and other things.”
“It was also a period when the faith-based schools especially the Christian ones were avenues for evangelization and denial of Muslim children their fundamental rights to freedom of religion. Not only that, some of those so-called Christian missionary schools were actually established as community schools but had to be hijacked by the churches due to the need for employment of teachers all or most of who were Christians and their loyalty with their churches.”
According to the group, taking over of schools by the then government was done with compensation to the original owners of those schools.
It further stated that taking over of the schools about 50 years ago, successive governments have spent huge government resources in building infrastructures and training of personnel for those schools.
These the group said were done with tax-payers’ money majority of who are not Christians in Osun State.
According to the group, after the taken over of schools by government in Nigeria especially in the South-West which unarguably dominantly Muslims, the Christian churches still continue laying wrongful claim to the ownership of those schools using the influence of school administrators who are majorly Christians to deny Muslim Students their fundamental rights, stopping the Muslim girls from the use of hijab and denying the teaching of Islamic studies.
Therefore, JOMAF sees the call by Bishop Oyejola for return of schools to missionaries as an attempt to return the schools to dark old age when the right of Muslim children to fundamental right to practice his religion and manifest same was always trampled upon.
“We state clearly that Muslims in Osun are more educated, more enlightened, more sophisticated and will not take anything that is capable of subjugating them and render them a second citizen in a state where they have equal rights. “
