Muslim Rights Concern defends flogging of madras students in Kwara State for partying

ISLAMIC body Muslim Rights Concern (Muric) has defended the recent brutal flogging of two students at a Koranic school in Kwara State for going to a party saying that it is the alternative to Nigerian youths appearing in the Big Brother Naija show.

Over the weekend, a video went viral of one male and one female student being severely flogged at a madrasa Koranic school in Kwara State after they were caught going to a party. Since it went live, there has been widespread condemnation of the brutal flogging, which was meted out by other pupils in the school.

However, Muric director and founder Professor Ishaq Akintola, has urged Nigerians not to jump to conclusions over the video.  Although he noted that the punishment meted out to the students was too harsh, Professor Akintola said that those condemning the brutal flogging encourage their children to participate in the Big Brother Naija show.

Highly erotic and promiscuous, the Big Brother Naija show has been widely condemned as too sexual and a bad influence on the youth. Adding that a lot of the people who criticised the flogging allowed their children to participate in the Big Brother Naija show, Professor Akintola said the public to allow the state government to investigate the matter.

Professor Akintola said: “While we regard the punishment meted out to the students as too harsh, we maintain that the action of the school authorities should not be judged in isolation. The fact that the parents requested the school to discipline their children must not be ignored.

“Muric is also in possession of another video in which the students confessed that they engaged in shameful and un-Islamic actions, namely visiting a club, drinking alcohol, bathing themselves with alcohol, etc. These are horrible acts in which ordinary Muslims must not be involved.

“Arabic schools are the repository of morality and the vault of uprightness and they are the conscience of the Ummah. The offence committed by those students becomes more unacceptable when the actors are students of an Arabic school who are expected to be the epitome of morality and religiosity.

 “The abyss of moral decadence into which the Nigerian society has fallen is responsible for most of the woes facing us in this country today. Family values and norms have been thrown to the winds, parents allow their children to dictate to them and instead of parents condemning waywardness in their children and punishing them for it, they now condone and collaborate.”

He further commended the parents of the flogged students for instructing the school authorities to punish them. According to Professor Akintola, this is not the Western world where the law allows children to dictate to their parents.

Professor Akintola added: “This is not London where a five-year-old child can call the police to arrest his mum for spanking him and all London police units will come racing to the house, blaring siren. This is not New York where a mother must seek permission from her three-year-old baby before the latter’s nappy can be changed. This is Nigeria, the heartbeat of Africa.

“We commend the parents of those children who instructed the school authorities to punish their children. Posterity will count them among Nigeria’s puritans and disciplinarians and those who are condemning the parents and the teachers today are those who will gladly encourage their own children and wards to participate in BBNaija’s shameful sex in public.”