Return schools to missionaries, Baptist youths tell Aregbesola

Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola

The Youth President of Osun Baptist Conference, Mr. Abayomi Akinola, has urged the Osun State Government to return missionary schools to their owners.

Akinola said this in an interview with our correspondent in Osogbo on Tuesday.

He said that the Baptists and other Christian denominations in the state had nothing against the reclassification of schools introduced by Governor Rauf Aregbesola administration.

But Akinola insisted that Christians would not allow schools mergers which would wipe away the traces of missionaries who founded such schools.

He said, “What they told us was that they were doing reclassification and we don’t have any problem with that. Osun is the first state in the nation to introduce this new policy but we are not bothered. We don’t want any policy which will erase what is left of our heritage. We won’t allow such policy. We are not against the state government and we are not fighting the governor but we are fighting for our rights.

“ I think they should return the schools back to the missionaries who founded them. With that there won’t be this crisis which we are facing. We won’t allow Muslim students to wear hijab in any Baptist school; it is an aberration  and we won’t allow it.”

Some Christians had on Monday protested the merger of schools with hijab wearing students with the Baptist High School, Iwo. The protesters defied the presence of security operatives and insisted that no Muslim student wearing hijab would be allowed into the school.

Similar protest had happened on October 2 at the Baptist Girls High School, Osogbo.

The Osun State Chairman of  Christian Association of Nigeria,  Rev. Elisha  Ogundiya, had stated in a statement that Christians would not allow any policy to obliterate their heritage.

Ogundiya said.  “We have maintained this stand from inception and we will continue to defend lawfully what belong to us as Christians in the state.”

But the governor had maintained that the new policy was not aimed at wiping away the heritage of the Christians or any group but an effort to transform the sector which he said was in decay when he assumed office in November 2010.

Source: Punch