Bauchi State is main some Northern Nigerian states to ask faculty pupils to remain at house, on some form of vacation, due to the Ramadan fasting that commenced on Saturday, 1st March, 2025.
Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is dedicated to fasting day by day between daybreak and nightfall.
Whereas we acknowledge that the Ramadan fasting is prescribed for adherents of the Islamic religion, we’re alarmed that some states within the Northern area of Nigeria, with the very best number of out-of-school kids, are embarking on such a coverage.
Bauchi State college students resumed the second time period of the 2024/2025 faculty session on sixth January, 2025, commenced the Ramadan holidays on 1st March, 2025 and can finish the vacations on sixth April, 2025, after the Ramadan would have ended and the accompanying Eid-el- Fitri festivities would have been held.
Bauchi State Ministry of Education maintains that it determined to undertake this coverage, taking into consideration the necessity to stability the training of the kids with non secular and cultural observances. However critics argue that it’ll adversely have an effect on the academic progress of the kids.
Whereas they suppose the coverage may not be honest to non-Moslem college students, others certainly concern that it might reverse the advance of Western training and possibly unfold to Southern Nigeria that has important Moslem believers, however have a comparatively liberal method to the apply of the Islamic religion.
The larger concern is that, however far-fetched the argument could also be, this coverage could compromise the Islamic counsel that we must always search data until it’s discovered. It may additionally reinforce the argument towards Western education, as espoused by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Different Northern Nigerian states which have shut down colleges for the Ramadan quick are Katsina, Kebbi and Kano. Sokoto State most likely paused, for now, its personal motion due to the criticisms.
Think about if examinations carried out by the West African Examinations Council and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board had been to come back up throughout the Ramadan fasting interval! Would the state governments nonetheless shut down the faculties, inform the kids to not write the examinations, or ask these companies to postpone the examinations?
Proof that this coverage will not be demanded by the Islamic religion is that nearly predominantly Moslem nations and certainly the neighbouring Zamfara State will not be going together with this pointless vacation. The principal of a Zamfara faculty has conclusively asserted, “We’re not occurring holidays as a result of Ramadan quick, and we’re going to begin the second-term examinationinations on March 10.”
However we acknowledge the argument of Prof Mahfouz Adedimeji, Vice Chancellor of African Faculty of Economics, who thinks that the concern expressed by some, particularly in Southern Nigeria, is way ado about nothing.
He argued that if the faculties may full the tutorial content material throughout the faculty time period “the vacation or break can fall wherever. (And) whether it is simply for the comfort of the bulk, I don’t see why people ought to have downside with that.”
With this conclusion, Prof Adedimeji inadvertently struck the purpose that hassle those that really feel marginalised by the coverage, those that imagine that it doesn’t take cognizance of the interest, or the opinion, of the minority who could belong to different religions.
And it, due to this fact, quantities to what college students of political science outline as majoritarianism, or the tyranny of the bulk. We marvel what Prof Adedimeji would say if Christians demanded a me-too vacation for the Christian Lenten interval of fasting!
Even throughout the Islamic coronary heartland of Sokoto State, the seat of the Sokoto caliphate, there’s a important variety of Christians, with temperate Bishop Hassan Mathew Kukah because the Bishop of Catholic Diocese.
We predict the coverage of compelling Moslems and non-Moslems to proceed on holidays throughout the Ramadan fasting interval quantities to trampling on the rights of adherents of different faiths. Part 10 of the 1999 Structure (as amended) supplies that, “The Authorities of the Federation or of a State shall not undertake any faith as State Faith.”
Lastly, the argument shouldn’t be lowered to a (potential) battle between Moslems and Christians, as there are devotees of different faiths in Nigeria. We’re persuaded that the unusual Ramadan faculty holidays don’t have anything to do with the Islamic religion, which emphasizes the significance of searching for knowledge from delivery to dying, however pure political strikes by the state helmsmen to court docket undue political benefits. The policy ought to be reversed with out additional ado.
