The Independent National Electoral Commission has disputed the claim by the Muslim Rights Concern that woman in hijab are being prevented from registering in the ongoing voter registration.
The position of INEC was contained in a statement by the Commission, signed by its Public Relations Officer in Lagos State, Femi Akinbiyi.
The statement reads:
The attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission Lagos state has been drawn to a press statement issued by the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) where it was alleged that:
“Thousand of Muslim women from South West may not be able to vote in the 2019…” The leader of the organization, Ishaq Akinola went on further to say that “Muslim Women are being asked to remove their hijab before capturing can take place.” He however made a particular reference to a registration centre in Agege local government of Lagos State.
It should be stated here that the statement is not true. A lot of Muslim women in hijab across the twenty local government areas of Lagos state have been captured, and still capturing since the commencement of the exercise. The records are there to support our claims.
The standard practice we adopted in all our Registration Centres is for INEC women officials to capture all Women in hijab’s biometrics in the open, while their faces alone were captured inside a confinement set aside for the purpose without necessarily exposing their ears or part of their hairs.
Where we are operating under the canopy women rappers are being used to screen off the Muslim women from the public view. This approach is known and approved by some of the Muslim coordinators who have been interfacing with some of our Electoral Officers since the commencement of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise.
The same approach is being adopted in Agege local government area where the Electoral Officer confirmed that registration of Muslim women in hijab is going on smoothly, and that she received no complaints of any issue with women in hijab from any quarter.
We want to also place it on record that religious fanatism has no place in the Lagos office of the commission. Muslim brothers and sisters in the office are operating as one family and are also part of registration officers found in all the INEC local government offices in the state, and even celebrated the last Ileya festival harmoniously with people of other faith in the office.
We therefore enjoined the good people of Lagos state to disregard the said statement, if care is not taken can cause religious unrest in the state which nobody is ready for. The best approach in our thinking to sensitive issue like this is dialogue. The Commission’s doors are open for dialogue on this and any other activities of the commission that need further clarification. MURIC a Muslim based faith organization is part of INEC critical stakeholders whose ideas and contributions towards the success of 2019 general is most welcome. Media statement on this kind of delicate issue is certainly not the best for us at this critical stage of our country development.
All Muslim women are therefore enjoined to please go out and register at the registration centers close to them as we are ready as before to respect their religious believe.
