WHEN MUSLIMS' VEIL BECOMES A SECURITY THREAT IN NORTHERN NIGERIA. Written by Saint-Olawale Jimoh

   When I first wrote the Northerners are their own worst enemy, while reflecting on how their rigid religious practices aid terrorism in the North, I got over a dozen messages in my inbox from those who saw no sense in the write up.
Today, the responses of those who attacked Prof Wole Soyinka who suggested the use of Hijab or other uniforms depicting pupils' religion be stopped left me utterly bewildered. Majority of those who attacked the nobel laureate were Northerners.

  Is a mere facial covering more important than human lives being wasted almost on daily basis through Boko Haram activities? Do these people prefer a situation where the female suicide bomber taking advantage of the Hijab being worn by female students to kill innocent Nigerians there in the North?
Day in day out, bombs explode in places of worship in Northeastern Nigeria and few communities are becoming desolate already.
Speak of restricting the use of certain facial coverings, and you'll promptly realize that a piece of black cloth can be more sacred than the lives of the entire members of the community.

   After the World Trade Centre was attacked in New York City in 2001, new tough measures were put in place, to secure airports and other places of public accommodation. We haven't heard of any case similar to it after the measures were put in place. When Ebola came to our land, people were asked to wash hands regularly. I did not hear anyone claim that such a practice amounted to gross violation of their culture. Southern religious leaders were instructed to end the practice of Christian religious revivals and crusades, as it was an excellent breeding technique for Ebola. Shaking hands, a sacred religious rite, was suspended in all Catholic churches. Ebola was nipped right in the bud. It did not fester because government had the balls to take tough measures, and the people were liberal enough to adapt themselves to change.
In some Islamic nations like Senegal, here in Africa, the use of facial covering has been banned yet their religion hasn't changed. But the reverse is usually the case in the Northern Nigerian. They are too religious to see sense in suggested preventive measures to help curb the loss of lives to the terrorists' activities in their domain. They simply never imagined the  number of lives that will be lost while defending the sanctity of the cloth