This sack is Islamophobic

The two victims Mrs Fasilat Olayinka Lawal and Ms Sekinat Sanusi were accused of wearing shoulder-length hijab while on duty at the hospital. Lagos state has in recent times become one part of the country where bigotry and religious discrimination thrive as norms. Besides, it is the policy of the Lagos state government to also […]

The two victims Mrs Fasilat Olayinka Lawal and Ms Sekinat Sanusi were accused of wearing shoulder-length hijab while on duty at the hospital. Lagos state has in recent times become one part of the country where bigotry and religious discrimination thrive as norms. Besides, it is the policy of the Lagos state government to also exclude female Muslim students from using hijab in the public education system in the state.
In the bid to protect their religious rights and resist the needless forms of discrimination launched against them by the management of NOHIL, the two victims who relied on the dress code prescribed by their regulatory body went to a court of law and secured an injunction restraining NOHIL from taking disciplinary actions against the two female nurses. But in a flagrant disregard to the court’s explicit order, the management of NOHIL went ahead to sack the two nursing staff members of the hospital. This does not come as a surprise, anyway, since disrespect for court orders has become the trademark of the government in power. If you think otherwise, why was the former Central Bank Governor Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi recently prevented from travelling to France by operatives of the DSS at Kano airport; allegedly on the orders of President Goodluck Jonathan? This was weeks after Sanusi won a court case in which the federal government was asked to release his official passport (it earlier ceased) and to also pay him N50 million damages.
Let’s come back to the Islamophobic dismissal from job of the two female nurses. Reacting to the sack in a statement carried on page 12 of the Sunday Trust edition of Sunday, April 27, 2014, the Executive Chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC) Disu Kamor lamented saying, ‘The dismissive attitude of the National Orthopedic Hospital Igbobi Lagos towards our judiciary system illustrates once again the unhealthy culture within the hierarchy of the hospital management and their resolve to scandalize the court’.
Considering the dress code for nurses in Nigeria, one finds it difficult to know where exactly the two female nurses went wrong in their uniform. The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) prescribes a standard uniform for all nurses in Nigeria. It categorically states in its circular dated February 11, 2002 (reference no: N&MCN/CMF/721/1/3) that ‘female nurses may wear either a nurse cap or a shoulder-length hijab’. The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria is a parastatal of the Federal Government of Nigeria established by Act Cap. No. 143 laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. The Council is the regulatory body for all cadres of nurses and midwives in Nigeria.
Narrating how their travails started, Mrs Lawal told a reporter from the Vanguard newspaper that when she assumed duty on February 25, 2014 to commence a one-month orientation programme at the NOHIL, she was instructed to remove her hijab. She however tendered a copy of the circular from the NMCN which permits her to wear shoulder-length hijab. On completion of the orientation exercise, Lawal said she was told that by wearing hijab, she was not properly dressed. Mrs. Lawal said she and Sekinat were each on April 9, 2014 served with a query letter dated April 8, 2014 which they promptly replied. The two victims of discrimination were told when they appeared before a Disciplinary Committee at NOHIL to, within 24 hours; decide on discarding the use of hijab while at work. They were thus directed to report back to the Committee at 10.00am the following day, and without hijab; or otherwise face disciplinary action. And because the two female Muslim nurses insisted on the use of hijab as prescribed by their religion, Islam; their appointments were finally terminated in a letter dated April 23, 2014.
People need to understand that the use of hijab by Muslim women is a religious injunction sanctioned by Allah (SWT) in Qur’an 24:31 where He states “And say to believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, … And that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye who believe! Turn ye all together towards Allah that ye may attain bliss”.
Given human nature of wanting to be noticed by doing things in unusual or amazing ways, it cannot be called hijab if it is transparent or fails to properly cover the head and the bosom. But since the complaint by the NOHIL is not about the size, style, colour or length of the hijab wore by the two female Muslim nurses but essentially about ‘wearing hijab’; it is a case in which the management of NOHIL is offensively the bigot, and thus, the aggressive party. Perhaps, authorities at NOHIL need to be reminded of the constitutional provision that grants citizens freedom of religion and its practice.
While Mrs Lawal and Ms Sekinat are encouraged to have confidence in the court to which they took their case, this is a matter in which the Federal Ministry of Health; officials of the NMCN; the Head of the Federal Civil Service of the Federation; the Senate and House Committees on Health; the Senate and House Committees on Ethics and Values; the National Human Rights Commission; the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Nigeria; and the Jama‘tu Nasril Islam must separately or collectively intervene to bring the two sacked nurses back to their jobs. Or else, every female Muslim nurse and midwife as well as female Muslims in other professions in the country stand the risk of becoming vulnerable to similar acts of bigotry. May Allah (SWT) continue to guide Muslims, males and females, to practice Islam as contained in the Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW), amin.
Are the abducted Chibok schoolgirls at Aso Rock Villa?
President Goodluck Jonathan recently inaugurated a presidential committee to rescue the abducted Chibok schoolgirls. Now, has this committee, if we may ask, replaced the Joint Military Task Force in Borno state which has the operational responsibility to comb the Sambisa ‘forest’ or other parts of the northeast region of the country infested with insurgency? What has the committee that would begin and end its sitting in Abuja got to do with the practical search for the seized Chibok schoolgirls? It is either that the committee was set up to collect and share its portion of the ‘national cake’ or the abducted schoolgirls are at the Aso Rock Villa in which case there would be no need to go to Chibok.