Appeal Court Bars Hijab At UI International School In Split Verdict
A long-running dispute over religious dress in one of Nigeria’s oldest secondary schools has taken a decisive turn, with the Court of Appeal in Ibadan ruling that female Muslim pupils of the International School, University of Ibadan, cannot wear the hijab as part of their uniform.
The three-member appellate panel delivered the verdict on Friday in a split decision of two to one, allowing an appeal filed by the school’s management against a judgment of the Oyo State High Court that had earlier upheld the students’ right to cover their heads. According to court records, the appeal challenged the High Court judgment of May 22, 2024, delivered by Justice Moshood Ishola, which held that barring the pupils from wearing the hijab violated their constitutional rights to freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Biobele Georgewill, with Justice K.I. Amadi concurring, drew a firm line between public and private institutions. He held that the International School, Ibadan, known as ISI, is a private school and therefore falls outside the scope of the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling that permits the hijab in government-owned schools. “In public schools, you can wear hijab on school uniforms based on the judgment of the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court is yet to make any decision on the use of hijab in private schools,” Justice Georgewill stated.
The judge further reasoned that the right to religious expression is a personal right capable of being waived. In his view, the affected pupils had done exactly that by enrolling in the school. He noted that they had “signed an undertaking to obey ISI’s rules and regulations, including its dress code,” and concluded, “The judgment of the lower court allowing female Muslim students to wear hijab on their school uniforms in ISI, a private school, is set aside.”
Not all members of the panel agreed. Justice Fadawu Umar dissented, holding that the appeal lacked merit and ought to be dismissed. In the minority judgment, he upheld the decision of the Oyo State High Court that had recognised the pupils’ entitlement to wear the hijab within the school.
The case has its roots in November 2018, when the school reportedly turned away some Muslim female students for wearing the hijab. Eleven of the affected pupils, backed by the Muslim Rights Concern, a rights advocacy group known as MURIC, approached the Oyo State High Court to challenge the school’s uniform policy as a breach of their fundamental rights. The suit dragged on for close to six years before Justice Ishola ruled in their favour in 2024. Dissatisfied, the school authorities, joined by the University of Ibadan and named officials, took the matter to the Court of Appeal, culminating in Friday’s ruling.
At the centre of the legal contest is the reach of a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court. On June 17, 2022, in the case marked SC.910/2016, a seven-member panel of the apex court, by a majority of five to two, dismissed an appeal by the Lagos State Government and affirmed the right of Muslim pupils to wear the hijab in the state’s public schools. That decision, delivered in the suit involving Asiyat AbdulKareem and the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria, effectively settled the question for government-owned institutions and has since been widely cited by advocates of the practice across the country.
The Ibadan panel’s reading is that the 2022 precedent stops at the gates of public schools. By holding that no equivalent pronouncement exists for private institutions, the majority has, in effect, opened a fresh legal frontier. Whether the students and their backers will pursue the matter further remains to be seen, though the tenor of Friday’s judgment suggests that a definitive answer may ultimately rest with the Supreme Court itself.
The ruling also lands at a time when questions of religious rights in schools remain sensitive across Nigeria, where similar disputes have surfaced in states including Lagos, Kwara and Osun over the years. For now, the immediate effect is clear: at the International School, University of Ibadan, the hijab remains off the approved uniform list, pending any further appeal.