Crime
Don’t conclude on Kwara students’ punishment in viral video -MURIC
Islamic human rights organisation, the Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has called on Muslims in Kwara State and the general public not to jump into conclusions on the severe beaten of the students of Musbaudeen Arabic/Quranic School, Ilorin in a viral video.
MURIC, in a statement signed and issued by its founder and director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, said “while we regard the punishment meted to the students as too harsh, we maintain that the action of the school authorities should not be judged in isolation.”
Akinola, who informed that the organization was also in possession of another video in which the students confessed that they engaged in shameful and unIslamic actions, namely, visiting a club, drinking alcohol, bathing themselves with alcohol, etc, added that the fact that the parents requested the school to discipline their children must not be ignored.
He said: “These are horrible acts in which ordinary Muslims must not be involved.
“Arabic schools are the repository of morality and the vault of uprightness. 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.
“Nigerians must brace up and understand where the authorities of the Kwara Arabic School are coming from? The students who received that beating were the black sheep in the school and they would have polluted others by taking them to the club if they had not been taught that bitter lesson. Whoever expected killings, kidnappings, rape and other vicious crimes in Northern Nigeria? It did not start in just one day.
“While we do not subscribe to merciless flogging, torture and other severe corporeal punishment, we make bold to say that children must be disciplined. MURIC will not encourage sparing the rod to spoil the child. Nigerians, nay Africans, must resist the temptation to embrace strange and obnoxious Western values.
“We commend the parents of those children who instructed the school authorities to punish their children. Posterity will count them among Nigeria’s puritanists and disciplinarians. 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.
“MURIC stands with discipline and high moral values, the highhandedness in the punishment is regrettable but what do those erring students deserve? Should they be showered with pancakes, shawarma and ice cream? They must be made to know the enormity of their shameful behaviour. The punishment may have been lighter though.
“In the light of the above, we urge Muslims in Kwara State and the general public to allow the Kwara State Government to investigate the incident. Government itself must adopt a middle road. We invite parents and guardians to discipline their children and wards promptly and proportionately.”
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