To be a hijabi in 2022
Maryam had not yet been given her uniform, so she dressed to school in the clothes a typical Muslim girl going through puberty would wear: A long top, a pair of straight jeans and a brightly coloured scarf wrapped around her head and neck probably folded over her head three times and very lumpy at the back (a popular trend for hijabis in the early 2000s).
One of the female teachers had a problem with how Maryam dressed. Mrs Chiamaka told her not to wear the scarf because it doesn't look smart. Although it was a missionary school, and the other two Muslim girls were a girl named Ruqayya and I, who barely wore the hijab, something about the way this teacher spoke to Maryam didn't sit right with me.
When I went home that day I told my mother and she agreed that Mrs Chiamaka had no right to tell Maryam what to wear. Especially since she had not been given the school uniform. When Maryam was eventually given the uniform she wore it without a headscarf.
I went to over 5 schools growing up. In different parts of the country. And that incident with Maryam and Mrs Chiamaka wasn't the last time I would see a Muslim woman scrutinised for their use of the hijab. When I started using a headscarf, a lot of the time people told me I looked better without it and asked if I was hot in it. Sometimes, more violently someone would ask me to take it off. One time, someone did take it off.
Muslim women in Nigeria for years have been forced to take off their hijabs. In 2021 a Twitter user complained about the discrimination her sister faced when she went to write UTME Exams at a centre in a Lagos and Muslim women were asked to take off their scarves and head coverings.
It sparked another discussion on hijab-wearing on Twitter and there were so many vile comments from Nigerians on the issue: Some described the use of Hijab as indoctrination of young girls while others mentioned that it was unreasonable for children to wear hijabs in a Christian school. One particular user tweeted that Hijabs should not be allowed in public spaces because Nigeria is a secular state and upon correction proceeded to insult the Prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam altogether.
On the 4th of February 2022, This day Newspaper reported the killing of one person in the Oyun Baptist High School, Ijagbo in the Oyun Local Government Area of Ilorin caused by protests that eventually escalated into clashes between Christian and Muslim Parents.
Kwara state government's failure to strip former missionary schools of their Christian names has given the management of this school, and other schools formerly owned by American missionaries who moved to the state in the 1940s, the power to enforce Christian ethics and values in schools which have been claimed by the government and should be public.
Reports by THISDAY further revealed that, as early as 8.00 am, parents of the Muslim students of the school were said to have come out early to the school and embarked on a peaceful protest in front of the school following the denial of the authority of the school to allow them to put on the Hijab.
These conflicts and discrimination sprang up despite the provisions of Chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where the rights to freedom of observance Of any religion irrespective of Race, Gender, or age. The enforcement of any religion on any person is also prohibited.
Why then are children asked to take off their hijabs in this church-owned school in Ilorin?
How did a peaceful protest by Muslim parents calling for their rights and the rights of their children to be enforced turn into a riot that claimed someone's life?
We could say since the school is owned by the church the school should be upheld. But what happens to the rights of the girls? And what is the obsession with girls and the way they dress? That monitoring and insisting that a certain standard of dressing be followed. Even when it results in violence?