CAN to Osinbajo - Islamic Arabic studies in curriculim is an Islamization agenda
THE Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has met with Acting
President Yemi Osinbajo to protest the inclusion of Islamic Arabic
Studies into secondary school curriculum without providing for Christian
Religious Knowledge as tending towards an Islamisation agenda.
Led by its President, Rev Dr Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, the association
said in a meeting with Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja that
the action was a time bomb which must immediately be diffused.
In his address at the occasion which was made available to the media
in Abuja on Thursday, Ayokunle, who regretted the removal of religious
studies from secondary school curriculum, described the move as
obnoxious, divisive and ungodly.
He told the Acting President: “We are here to point your attention to
a time-bomb, obnoxious, divisive and ungodly secondary school
curriculum that the Federal Ministry of Education is introducing into
our schools and of which we had earlier complained to the Presidency.”
He said the first attempt to introduce it had been suspended following CAN’s protest but had now been brought back.
While noting that a state had already started its implementation, the
CAN president said it was “an ill-wind that blows nobody any good for
so many reasons.”
He added that in this 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.
CAN argued 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.
The association stated: “As prophets to the nation, we demand a
complete withdraw and ban of this curriculum. If allowed to be
implemented, it would lead us to a godless nation with violence and all
forms of ungodliness as the order of the day.
“Furthermore sir, this curriculum went ahead to introduce Islamic
Arabic Studies in another section together with French and made one of
the two compulsory for the student.
“You are aware that we have very low percentage of French teachers in
all our secondary schools in Nigeria. I am sure that over 80 per cent
of our secondary schools do not have French teachers at all but have
Arabic teachers.
“The implication is that Christian students would have no choice than
to study Arabic. If a Christian student voluntarily goes to study
Islamic Arabic Studies, there is nothing bad in that because some of us
in both religions had done that before for better understanding.
“However, where the student is tactically forced into studying it
because the alternative subject does not have teacher to teach it, it is
a great problem tending to islamisation.
“Still in this curriculum, Islamic Religious Knowledge was equally
made available as a subject in another section without any corresponding
availability of Christian Religious Knowledge.
“Is this not a divisive curriculum that can set the nation on fire? Is this fair to millions of Christians in this nation?
“A Christian student in a secondary school in Kwara State had the
body lacerated with cane by the Arabic teacher because the pupil refused
to do Arabic Studies when French teacher was not available and
Christian Religious Knowledge, Hebrew or Greek were not part of the
options at all.
“If we are going to do pilgrimage together as a nation, there must be
fair play, mutual respect for one another and justice which can be
brought about by different arms of government.
“We demand for justice from the government on this matter very quickly.
“We would request for a return to the curriculum we were using before
this dangerous one which did not produce insurgents or a wrongly
indoctrinated Nigerians. A stitch in time saves nine.”
CAN made other demands of the acting President which included the
arrest and prosecution of “murderous herdsmen,” arrest and prosecution
of those who called for the expulsion of Igbos in the north, making
youths entrepreneurs and stoppage to kidnapping on the nation’s
highways.