Nigerian lawyer who wore a traditionalist attire to the Supreme Court three days ago, Malcolm Omirhobo, has vowed to continue to do so.
He says the fact that he wears a feather on his cap does not make him guilty of any offence.
According to him, the Supreme Court judgement that grants Muslim students the opportunity to wear hijabs should not stand based on the secular principle of the Nigerian polity and Constitution.
According to him, those who cite the example of American policemen wearing hijabs are missing the point because the Constitutions are not the same.
In an interview with ‘The Punch’, he says, “I am not being disrespectful to the court. I am an African man. I am waiting to be told that I am not properly dressed. They should tell me what is proper dressing, according to the Constitution of Nigeria. Is there anything in the Legal Practitioners Act that defines the kind of dress I must wear? Whatever we wear is based on convention that we should wear black and white. Can convention supersede the constitution? The law says one (law graduate) will be called to the Bar, and wear a wig and gown. Did the law say I should not wear a feather on my head? Did it say I must wear black and white? The law didn’t say so. So, what we are wearing is just about culture, and culture does not supersede the constitution. So, that just shows there is a lacuna in our laws. They need to look at them critically. Nobody should tell me what is decent about dressing. I will continue to dress like this. I am ready to face any panel anywhere and I go open book for dem.
“the mistake some people continue to make is saying female American soldiers wear the hijab. Do we practise the same constitution? We don’t have the same history and composition. We started this country (Nigeria) based on a negotiated unity and one of the pillars of our negotiation to be one indivisible and indissoluble Nigeria is that Nigeria will be a secular country. If the founding fathers knew that one day they would not be able to associate freely or that they would be tagged as blasphemers, be lynched and burnt, do you think they would have agreed to the idea of one Nigeria? So, some groups of people should not shift the goalpost at this point. If Nigeria must be united as one, the secularity is an essential ingredient. And the Supreme Court should have taken very seriously the secularity of Nigeria when it was passing that judgment.
“My fear is that this judgment will worsen the disunity in the country. When you enter a public school in those days, you wouldn’t know who was a Christian or a Muslim and that is why what pupils wear in school is called a uniform. But imagine a teacher, maybe a fanatical Christian, coming into a class and seeing a pupil with a hijab; that could get the teacher annoyed and think she is a terrorist. If the teacher is a Muslim and the female pupil does not have a hijab on, the teacher could see that pupil as an infidel. That brings about disunity and hatred, suspicion and jealousy and unnecessary rivalry.”
