Four days ago, I got an update from facebook to check a new post from Alhaji Sulaiman Oyaremi as usual. I saw a picture of a woman fully covered in hijab including hand glove and face cover being congratulated for her PhD degree. At that time it never occurred to me as something extraordinary. I never knew PhD in Niqob is unprecedented not even in any of our Muslim established Universities.
It was after many more posts started emerging from various sections of the social media that I realised the history that Dr Mrs Kafilat Motunrayo Oyaremi has made. She has done the never-heard in UI and in the entire Universities in the South West. There are yet to confirm insinuations that she is probably the first in the entire 170 Universities in Nigeria.
Yes! Umu Abdullahi deserves all our praises and eulogies as a Ummah. She is our heroine and a celebrity. The mother of five has given us more ground to boast and more chances to proof that hijab does not and cannot hinder success of a Muslim lady. Rather, hijab has protected them from distractions. It has given them freedom to concentrate. Which freedom or dignity is in body exhibitionism and provocative display of curves that would continue to tempt even 'men of God' among the lecturers to jail and many others sacked?
The question of why there are no PhD holders among veiled women is not a question of potential. It is a matter of victimisation, stigmatisation, condemnation, discrimination and oppression of teachers, lecturers and Professors. Most of them stopped along the way after adopting full veil. They later eventually forgo their academic pursuit for niqob or sacrifice their full veil for their careers. This is why there are less full hijab users in academics.
You either use chest/shoulder-stand shorts or cap to merely cover your head and ears. I do not know how this standard fits into the definition of hijab for which Allah repeated twice in the same verse with the following Interpretations of the meaning 'not to expose their adornments' (general case) and 'not...to make known what they conceal of their adornment' (particular for seduction) {Qur'an 24:31}
The institutions are simply hostile to this Islamic dressing. And a true Muslim lady is not one without it. The system compels them to choose between their faith in heaven and their fate on earth as mutually exclusive options. 'It is either you want to use veil or pursue your academics' is the unwritten code. Then, most of them choose the former. They care more about their fate in heaven than aspirations of this world because unlike the former, the latter is transient and uncertain.
Consequently, humans (not hijab) are the constraint and limitations that Dr Oyaremi was privileged to cross. Many in her situation were not that lucky. The situation has kept many of our egg-headed Muslim sisters at home. They were discouraged by religious intolerance that made veiling on campus a hell of a crime. It has been a battle of several decades. Many first class graduate sisters now veiled cannot proceed. Let the ignorants continue to abuse them for choosing that option.
Leaving out this factor, we can produce grandmothers from among our graduate wives who would outshine academically and preeminently produce PhD theses in various fields. Dr Mrs Oyaremi is just one sample of them. Sister Fatimah Isowo was her Amirah (while she was the Vice) while graduating for their first degree in 2005. She also used veil and graduated as the best student in electrical engineering. Sisters in veil and full hijab have shown similar records of exceptional brilliance in many universities with records unprecedented in their various faculties. I have the list of some of them, the like of Rasheedat Alabi who received 26 prizes from faculty of Medicine, University of Ilorin in 2016/2017.
In fact, this may be too far away. In the same UI in the most recent convocation this year, the overall best graduating master's student is Mrs Habeebah Olayinka Owolabi. She graduated with a perfect CGPA of 7.0. She was also a first class graduate for her B.Sc. What happens to these ones if they decide to use veil before their PhD? Would they have a cooperating Professor or tolerant University system to accommodate them?
On this note, I think the Muslims should celebrate more the Professors under whom Dr Oyaremi made this breakthrough. Professor Monica Ngozi Odinko is the woman of the show. If many Muslim ladies in veil have the capacities but none has been to do so, it is because no one Professor is willing to accept them. No PhD without a supervisor. Judging from her first name, Prof. Odinko is an Igbo and most probably a Christian.
Whoever is a researcher at the level of PhD would know that without the support and religious tolerance of Prof. Monica, Umu Abdullah would have remained a PhD-qualified-not-certified like many other veiled Muslim graduate sisters. I watched our celebrated Doctor Mrs speaking on Ummah TV and also read the article 'veiling is not failing: story ten' where her life story was motivationally narrated. I wish the initiators of those broadcasts should grant same privilege to dear esteem Prof. Monica Ngozi Odinko, her amiable supervisor.
We need to show her our appreciations. We want to hear her out educating her peers. She truly has the exposures deserving of a Professor when the academia is almost becoming a caucus of locals and fanatics. University is about potentials, capacities and deliveries. It is not about religion or appearance.
University derived its name from universality. Different folks from diverse cultures and religious meet to advance the course of humanity through research for development. Tolerance for one's student's faith or ideology is part of education. Respecting other religious belief is no apostasy or loss of consciousness for one's creed. Prof. Mrs got it 100%.
It is a time veiled students are being denied access to enter the campus in some Universities. It is interesting to note that Prof. Mrs Odinko tutored a veil student when Muslim Professors supported their university for banning such students. When Muslims migrated to Abysynnia, the accommodation given to them by the non-Muslim emperor was the first victory they had against tyranny. An-Najashi was well appreciated and recognized by the Muslims far before he later accepted Islam. In recognition of that tolerance gesture, funeral prayer was said on him far away from where he died by the messenger of Allah.
The Ummah should meet and accord such gestures to this true mother of a Professor. Wa laa udwaanan Illa alaa dhoolimeen. There is no detest except to the wrongdoers. I hail all the Professors of the departments of early childhood education and educational evaluation where our elder sister made her PhD. The Muslims appreciate them. Ultimately, I give it to the Premier University for being premier on this too.
It is on record the first University in Nigeria, University of Ibadan was the first to show her maturity to have awarded a doctor of philosophy to a woman who defended her thesis in full hijab with socks, hand glove and face cover. Meanwhile, the International school Ibadan (ISI) case is still lingering. Similar maturity and tolerance should be extended. I seriously plead with UI authority. That ISI school management can subject innocent children to this much abuse at this age should worry the ivory tower.
The head of ISI is a Christian woman like Prof. Ngozi and are both academics under the jurisdiction of UI. Where should there be a contrast episode? A girl child denied education because of her hijab right from secondary school has lost pride in being an ambassador of such schools whether she eventually achieves her dream or not. Hijab discriminations up and down in the schools and work places that swings across South West like tyfoon is distractive. It undermines the merit of the goals we need to achieve with education in our dear country. Tribal and religious diversity being employed as a stragetic tool of development in many mono-cultural mono-religious countries has been our major frictional force in Nigerian space.
Besides, It scores us much lower in Yoruba land than the general perception that we are the most educated and most religious-fused region of the country. Religious tolerance is dead in South West especially against the Muslims. This is why it is Prof. Ngozi, a non-native that compromised. A deviant behaviour of a true elite for which she deserves prizes and accolades.
I appeal to the academia to give the Muslim ladies the freedom to dress according to the command of their Lord. They would come out in their numbers to show the stuffs in them except it is a deliberate scheme against Muslim girl child education and scholarship.
For God and Humanity.
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