To be frank, ongoing debates about the closure of schools in some northern states as Ramadan sets in is beyond absurd. For time and space, I will restrict my comment to the most absurd part of the debate, the threat by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to pursue legal means to challenge actions of the involved states. I will also restrict my comment to cover Katsina State for familiarity reason. 

Let’s first agree that ALL the people disagreeing with the decision of Katsina State to close schools for a Ramadan holiday are doing so from a position of stark ignorance. His Excellency, Governor Dikko Umaru Radda, did not just wake up and decided to close schools for a Ramadan holiday. It’s a yearly tradition, at least since the year 2020, when the last Assembly, in its wisdom, deemed it fit to enact a law making compulsory the closure of schools during the month of Ramadan — a law which is yet to be repealed or amended to justify any debate about the legitimacy of Katsina State Government’s action in this regard. 

Actually, for this reason I find concerns raised by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) most absurd and worthy of a detailed response. It beats me why for all the 5 years (2020/2025) the law for closing schools during Ramadan has been effective in Katsina State, CAN seemed either aloof or totally unaware about the law or simply chose only now to realize that “education is a fundamental right and the bedrock of progress which could be threatened by the Ramadan holidays sanctioned by Katsina State and some other northern states. 

Perhaps, the interest of CAN was provoked by the involvement of the Hisbah Board in Katsina State. But then, that’s a gaffe of monumental consequences to CAN given its status as a supposed unbiased overseer who shouldn’t be caught experimenting with nothing but facts. Katsina Hisbah Board’s involvement has nothing to do with the legitimate directives to close schools in the state. The board only came in as an enforcement agency as should be reasonably expected of any relevant agency of the state. If I have to say, Hisbah Board is equally a creation of a state law. 

Before I digress. While CAN is of the position that “it honor the religious diversity of our nation and recognize the significance of faith, the decisions to close schools for Ramadan holidays raise serious issues of equity, educational continuity, and the welfare of all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs,” CAN’s apparent biased position couldn’t be missed in this matter. CAN has never cautioned the Federal Government to consider the diversity and secularity of Nigeria for closing not only schools but shutting down the national economy yearly for the nation to observe Good Fridays and Easter Mondays with Muslims forcefully drafted into yearly holidays. 

Of course, CAN is free to argue that the national economy is also being shut down for Muslims to observe Maulud holidays etc. But then, isn’t that the give and take spirit expected of any template designed to manage a diverse and secular Nigeria? Why, then, is CAN playing the oppressor and the victim simultaneously? Muslims have no business shutting down their lives on Good Fridays and Easter Mondays every year but they’d been enduring these holidays in the spirit of give and take for far longer than anybody could recall. That’s on a much tolerable level anyway. 

On a bigger scale, the “52 Sundays” in a year being enjoyed by Christians as holiday and for which Muslims are also forcefully kept away from their schools and work places is another imbalance left unaddressed by CAN, despite its ‘magnanimous” concern for the preservation of the sanctify of Nigeria’s diversity and security. Need I remind CAN and other pundits that from time immemorial Muslim children are kept away from school for a cumulative 52 days in a year to observe Sundays? Now, if 52 days holidays in a year is not destructive enough to negatively affect the development of education in Nigeria, why should a 30-day Ramadan holiday be seen as bad enough to attract threats of litigation by CAN? 

Yeah, CAN may be inclined to argue ‘Sundays’ as the holiday needed to fulfill the global mantra of ‘all work no play make Jack a dull boy.’ Then, are Muslims suppose to challenge the applicability of the 52-Sunday holidays forcefully enforced on them on the basis of the Gregorian calendar, also enforced on them and which they remained subscribed to with dignified silence? Or do I need to remind CAN that Nigerian Muslims doesn’t even have a calendar that’s compliant to their faith CAN’s concerns for Nigeria’s diversity, secularity and all! 

Still on this aberration, CAN’s threat to pursue restraining orders through the courts to challenge Ramadan holidays to, in turn, safeguard the constitutional rights to education and freedom of conscience of Nigerians (emphasis mine) as bizarre and shabbily arrived at as it may unleash a chain reaction which likely effect is the total distortion of the existing harmonious co-existence. On whose behalf is CAN planning to go on this blind pursuit? Certainly not the parents who are glad for the little reprieve  offered them by the holiday to accommodate the harsh atmospheric and socio-economic conditions commonly observable in Ramadan this part of Nigeria which, in turn, will allow them more convenience to practice Ramadan in its fullest sense. 

And by the way, what if Jama’atul Nasrul Islam (JNI) or the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) decides to borrow the wisdom of CAN to pursue restraining orders in court to enforce Friday holidays doing which will concretize the kind of freedom and equality CAN wish to be seen as promoting? 

Muslims have been going to work while their kids go to school every Friday of the week for all the 52 weeks in a year in Nigeria. Of course, except for the Christian Good Fridays. Yet, neither JNI nor the NSCIA ever raise a finger to protest much less, threatened to challenge this aberration in court. It’s not that JNI or NSCIA do not have the skills and talents to write press statements rejecting holidays. The perpetual silence of the bodies is indicative of a sincere subscription to the critical need to rationalize and accommodate the diversity and secularity of Nigeria as a way of enhancing peaceful co-existence; the kind of which CAN is aiming achieve to fast-track Nigeria’s development going by the surface of the contents of its press statement. 

Rather than zeroing on trivialities to advocate and fast-track socio-economic development, CAN should have been more pragmatic by reviewing fiscal policies, budgetary provisions and implementations of individual states and governor to identify and address real lapses hampering developments whether in the education sector or other critical sectors for the purpose of rebuke or commendation. It truly doesn’t make sense for instance, to accuse Governor Radda of Katsina State, of being a threat to the educational advancement of millions of students in the state when he’s the only governor on record who in one single swoop employed (on permanent and pensionable basis) over 7,000 teachers for the purpose of improving education in state. 

CAN was nowhere to applaud Governor Radda for this unprecedented feat. I’m also sure, despite its deliberate silence CAN couldn’t have missed the billions of Naira the administration of Governor Radda has invested to improve education in the state details of which were vividly captured in the 3rd edition of the monthly press briefing hosted by the Deputy Governor, His Excellency, Faruk Lawal, on 31/1/25 and which was virally circulated in the print, electronic and the social media (and still available on the internet). 

For CAN to be ignorantly concerned about Governor Radda’s determination to leave behind a lasting legacy in education in the state on the basis of closing schools for a Ramadan holiday; a decision legitimately backed by a state law he inherited, while ignoring the satisfaction and appreciation of the people of Katsina State for the near magical results he’s achieving in education and other sectors, one could only say CAN is trying to shave the heads of Katsina people in their absence. 

Ramadan Kareem!