Babatope to Aregbesola: Keep S’West out of your religious extremism

A visibly angry Chief Ebenezer Babatope, took on Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State on Wednesday, warning him to keep his religious antics to himself before he threw the state and the entire South West into unnecessary war, which could get at of control.

Chief Babatope

The former Minister of Transport and Aviation, who was reacting to the current crisis in the state’s education system, occasioned by the approval of a judge in the state for Muslim students to wear hijab to all public schools, told Daily Sun that bringing religion into politics had done too much havoc in Nigeria, for a governor to be wary of introducing it in his state.
Babatope, a septuagenarian and a strong first and second republic politician from Ilesha, Osun State, according to the paper, warned the governor not to introduce religion into politics because, South West had always been co-existing as Christians and Muslims, arguing that promoting one religion over the other, was not part of the
Hear him: “We don’t need any governor to come and be promoting one religion over another. Let him have very good dialogue with the Christian community and face the governance that he was elected for, because promotion of Islamic religion over Christianity was not part of his campaign promises.
“Let him concentrate on how to pay his workers’ salaries and work on how he will never owe salary again instead of this distraction he is occupying himself with.”
Lamenting the level of suffering in the state, where he has now retired to, Babatope urged the governor to listen to the daily anguish and lamentations of the people, rather than promoting religious sentiments, citing the havoc such unwholesome sentiments had already caused in states like Kano, Jos, Kaduna, Bauchi and many other place in the North where constant shedding of blood eventually graduated into terrorism as seen in Boko Haram.

Governor Aregbesola

He added: “Aregbesola should not sow such seeds of religious competition in the minds of young people in the South West now so that they will not grow up to start promoting religion crisis.
“Is it this hijab or uniform wearing that will make them to become brilliant students, promote the standard of education and let them become useful to the society?”
He then advised all governors in Nigeria to develop large heart of seeing themselves as governors to all and not for a particular religion, ethnic group or political party, saying good wishing to succeed must not go the way the governor had chosen.
A lot of confusion has crept up into the school system in the state, as female Muslim and Christian students have started wearing hijab and church garments to school to promote their Islamic and Christian religions, in what many fear could lead to serious religious intolerance that could degenerate into a major crisis if quickly checked.

Osun students and their garments in class.

The problem, which has been on for some years, came to a head with the judgement of an Osun High Court that female Muslim students in the state could now wear hijab to public schools, which some Christian leaders and owners of missionary schools like Baptist High School, Salvation Army Middle School, felt was a subtle method to start promoting Islam in their mission schools.
Incidentally, the governor has kicked against the directive of church leaders in the state to the Christian to begin wearing church garments to school, warning that any student caught wearing unapproved uniform to school would be expelled.

Source Whirlwind News/Daily Sun