Reported Delisting of CRK Subject: CAN, Apostle Suleman’s lies worry Nigerian government

*CAN, others dissipating their energy on unfounded claims – NERDC

*’Policy made by Jonathan not Buhari,’ CAN, Omega church replied

But Mrs Nwufo strongly denied the allegations and said the Christian leaders were dissipating their energy on unfounded claims.  “People especially leaders should be careful of the information peddle around and take their time to make findings.  We live in a sensitive society therefore we should come together and not destabilise the country as it will affect everybody, we should avoid escalating issues,” Mrs Nwufo said.

The Nigerian government has reacted to controversy created by the President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Reverend Samson Olasupo Ayokunle and President of the Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman and a particular lone ranger in opposition to the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government, Reno Omokri, over alleged removal of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) subject from the country’s education curriculum.

A particular Nigerian print medium had on Monday prominently vocalised the scream of the Christian leaders, who were using the alleged delisting of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) subject to justify what had been described as their unfounded allegation of Islamisation of Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari.  Reno Omokri had posted on his facebook wall on June 19 that, “Tunde Bakare can’t condemn the removal of CRK from our curriculum but can send coded messages to Professor Yemi Osinbajo about ‘next in line’ not being king!”

A delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), led by its President Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, had last Friday met Acting President Yemi Osinbajo behind closed doors at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, during which it made five demands in a letter delivered to the Acting President.

The demands bothered on the following: “Change of obnoxious curriculum that demands students to study Islamic Arabic Studies; Arrest and prosecute murderous herdsmen; Arrest and prosecute those who called for the expulsion of Igbos; Turn our youths into Entrepreneurs and Stop kidnapping on our roads.”  Ayokunu’s CAN did not however mention how the curriculum allowed the study of Islamic and Arabic studies to the detriment of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK).

In his own reaction, President of the Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman, had expressed outrage at the alleged removal of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) as a subject of study from the secondary school curriculum, describing it as a move by President Muhammadu Buhari to Islamise Nigeria.

It would be recalled Suleman, in a video that put him into national condemnation and trouble with security agencies, had also accused the government particular governor of Kaduna State Nasir el-Rufai calling him unprintable names as he preached hate asking his congregation to kill and cut the heads of Fulani found around him.  It would also be recalled that the apostle later regretted to have spoken based on hearsay regarding the Southern Kaduna killings.

In his latest statement on the alleged removal of CRK issued on Sunday by Phrank Shaibu, spokesman of his church, Apostle Suleman, stated that the decision to scrap CRK as a subject in the curriculum but only to be studied as a theme in civic education while leaving Islamic/Arabic studies as a subject to be studied in the secondary school curriculum, was a deliberate plot by the Buhari administration, among other schemes, to eliminate Christianity or at best reduce it to insignificance in Nigeria.

The Omega church leader said: “The new curriculum which is the brain-child of the Nigerian Educational Research Council and which is mischievously crafted to force Islamic Studies down the throat of non adherents is unjust, discriminatory, a subtle attempt at islamization, and therefore unacceptable,” the statement said.

“This is a well orchestrated and articulated plot. Let nobody try to fool Nigerians that it was a mistake or a coincidence. Why is it that CRK would be removed as a subject to be studied from the secondary school school curriculum while Islamic/Arabic studies is retained? This is a plan from hell and it shall not stand”, he declared.

Apostle Suleman also noted that the policy has been introduced at a time when Fulani herdsmen are on rampage in parts of the country and just before so called Arewa youths gave Igbo people living in the North to quit before October 1.

What baffled many observers of the shows by both CAN’s Samson Ayokunu-led delegation to Osinbajo and Omega Church’s Apostle Johnson Suleman remains that the two notable religious groups and personalities did not prove their case over the education policy they complained about.  They also did not state why they kept silence all along while the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and MASSOB had been inciting chaos and violence through their hate preaches and statements only to now to rise against an ultimatum by Northern Youths asking the Igbo to quit the North as if to say both CAN and Apostle Suleman are part of the sponsors of the violent Biafra agitations that the nation had witnessed, which they only looked for an improperly orchestrated opportunity in the “alleged delisting of CRK” to drive home their solidarity for the IPOB and MASSOB as means of venting their angers against the North.  This was the position of some of the respondents who spoke to The DEFENDER on the yet another outburst by the two religious bodies and leaders.

But reacting to the Christian leaders’ allegations, on Monday, the acting Executive Secretary of Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Kate Nwufo, denied their claims that Christian Religious Studies had been removed from the curriculum.  Nwafo also denied that CRK and Islamic Studies were now studied as a single subject.

She said, “We have developed a curriculum on Religion and National Values to expose pupils to see relationship between moral values – which entails religion, social values – and civic values,” Mrs. Nwufo said.
She said the NERDC developed the curriculum in partnership with the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the country’s largest Christian body, had reported said that CRS, specifically, had been dropped from the latest curriculum, leaving only Islamic studies.

But Mrs Nwufo strongly denied the allegations and said the Christian leaders were dissipating their energy on unfounded claims.

“People especially leaders should be careful of the information peddle around and take their time to make findings,” Mrs. Nwufo said.

“We live in a sensitive society therefore we should come together and not destabilise the country as it will affect everybody, we should avoid escalating issues.”

New curriculum

Copies of the curriculum given by the NERDC boss, according to news report, showed that Christian Religious Studies remains part of the curriculum along with Islamic Studies.

The curriculum was designed for Basic Education; Primary 1-3, 4-6 and JSS 1-3 and merely created an omnibus subject head called Religion and National Values. Under it are the following subjects:

1. Civic Education
2. Social Studies
3. Christian Religious Knowledge
4. Islamic Studies, and
5. Security Education.

The latest curriculum was adopted in 2012 under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan and is not due for review until 2019, the acting executive secretary said.

Mrs. Nwufo said “teachers across the country have been adequately trained” on how to use the curriculum.

“A teachers’ guide was also handed to them.” she added

She further stated that even then, religious subjects were never directed to be taught together, they are to be taught by different teachers and at different times.

She said CAN was part of the committee that designed the latest curriculum alongside other Islamic leaders.

“We wrote to CAN and they presented two candidates to us in persons of Ray Chukwura of ECWA Goodnews and Dominick Oleagbe from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria,” she claimed.

But CAN denied being part of the committee, saying the education authority had already started designing the curriculum before it raised alarm.

“It was when we raised alarm and went to see the minister of education at the time that we were told that two Christians have been nominated as part of the committee with NERDC,” Timothy Opoola, chairman of CAN in Kwara State said.

Mr. Opoola, a professor of mathematics at the University of Ilorin, told PREMIUM TIMES he was a member of the delegation that met with the minister.

“We told them to allow CAN present delegates but CAN never presented candidates because they did not allow it,” he said.

The cleric also said questions set for Basic Education Certificate Examination slated for next month in Kwara State included separate Islamic-related subjects, while Christian course is absent.

But education authorities in the state rejected the claims.

“I can tell you categorically that we don’t have any separate Islamic studies in our schools,” Musa Yeketi, Kwara State Commissioner of Education, told PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday. “We use the national curriculum.”

But he said there are exceptions in the composition of school curricular in the state.

“All the students take the same course, except those from dedicated Islamic schools.

“We have College of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the state, about five across the state.

“Only students from the school will take the Junior Islamic Studies —in religious knowledge and Arabic language— and Arabic Islamic History.

“The Christian Religious Studies, CRS, and Islamic Religious Studies, IRS, are to be taken by Christian and Muslim students, respectively, alongside the national values subject,” the commissioner said.

Mr. Yeketi said Religion and National Values were not the only subjects merged.

“Basic Science and Technology, for instance, is a composition of information technology, physical and health education, and general science,” he said.

Some junior secondary students told the online medium on Tuesday that CRS, IRS and national values’ questions were together in junior secondary school exams, and that they attended the religious studies questions based on their respective religions.

But the national values questions are mandatory for all students.

Musa Musibau, a teacher at Gateway Secondary School, Abeokuta, Ogun State, said Religion and National Values comprised CRS, IRS, social studies, security education and civic studies.

“Christianity and Islam are still taught in schools across the state,” Mr. Musibau, an IRS teacher, said.