A non-governmental organization, Human Rights Writers Association of
Nigeria, HURIWA, has raised the alarm that the removal of Christian Religious
Knowledge,
CRK, from public school’s curriculum by the education ministry
headed by Mallam Adamu Adamu is a sinister plot to cause inter-religious crisis
in Nigeria.
The pro-democracy group further classified the Education Minister as an
agent of destabilization of inter-religious harmony going by his arbitrary
appointments of persons of the Islamic religious faith group to head the
strategic educational agencies such as the National Universities Commission,
NUC; Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB); Tertiary Education Trust
Fund, TETFUND, amongst others.
The statement signed by the group’s president, Emmanuel Onwubiko and
made available to DAILYPOST, said, “We view this primordial inclination to
favour his own religious orientation in the framing and implementation of
national educational policies even when section 10 of the constitution of
Nigeria has absolutely banned the elevation of any religion as state religion.
“We are aware of the very destabilizing plots to foist the study of
Islamic religious study as compulsory subject in public secondary school even
when the constitution in section 38 (1) and (2) provides that on no occasion
will a strange religious faith be taught to students/pupils of different
religious persuasions.
”Specifically section 38 (1) & (2) averred thus: (1) “Every person
shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including
freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in
community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate
his religion or belief in worship, practice and observance.
HURIWA reminded the Nigerian Presidency that sub-section (2) of section
38 of the Constitution affirmed that: “No person attending any place of
education shall be required to receive religious instruction or attend any
religious ceremony or observance if such instruction, ceremony or observance
relates to a religion other than his or a religion not approved by his parent
or guardian.
It said that: “We have it on good authority that the current education
minister has arbitrarily ordered that in the current curriculum, Islamic and
Christian Religious Studies will no longer be studied in schools as subjects on
their own but as themes in a civic education, adding that Islamic studies had
however been made a compulsory alternative subject to French for students in
sections of the curriculum.
The Rights group endorsed the position that since French teachers were
scarce in the country as against a glut of Islamic teachers, Christian students
would be forced to take Islamic Arabic Studies which is absolutely
unconstitutional and amounts to an attempt to impose one religion as a state
religion against constitutional provision in section 10.
HURIWA stated further; “We demand the restoration of both Islamic
religious study and Christian religious knowledge as subjects in public school
just as we hereby ask that an alternative subject to be called African
traditional religious study to be introduced to balance the religious equation
in Nigeria.
“We totally condemn this attempt by the education Minister to promote
his own religion using public office and resources even when the Nigerian
constitution frowns against such extralegal inclination. We warn that this
attitude of Mallam Adamu Adamu can only promote religious disharmony and could
precipitate religious war. We call for the observance of Federal character
principle in the appointments of key officials in the Education ministry.”
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