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THE Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, (NSCIA) headed by the Sultan of Sokoto has rejected the new naira notes which was launched last week by President Olusegun Obasanjo on the ground that the Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes were removed and replaced with the three major Nigerian languages; Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba. The council has therefore insisted that the Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes should be restored.

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This was one of the resolutions of the council at the end of its meeting held in the palace of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar after he was presented with the staff of office yesterday.

The meeting which was presided by the Sultan had in attendance the Secretary General of the Council, Alhaji Lateef Adegbite and the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Alao Arisekola.

But the Central Bank governor, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo while explaining the reasons behind the removal of Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes at the launching of the new notes said “It is pertinent to let Nigerians understand that Arabic is not one of the national languages and it was inscribed on the notes 40 years ago because the majority of people then can read it in the Northern part of the country to the detriment of their counterparts in the South.”

The CBN apparently pre-empted the reactions by the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar, that reasons should be offered for deleting the Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes.

Soludo spoke of the need for the country to grow and move forward and for its people to get accustomed to innovations. He stressed that the removal of the Arabic inscriptions was to promote unity in diversity and was not directed at any religious or ethnic group.

Apart from the restoration of Arabic inscriptions on the new naira notes, the Islamic Council also want the Federal Government to put on hold the planned restructuring of the Unity Schools in the country. The Minister of Education, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili has been in the forefront of reforms in the education sector and part of the reforms is the privatisation of Unity Schools.

The cardinal objective of the Education Sector Reform, according to the minister is “the restoration of character and learning to education as foundation for creating and sustaining a good society, for nurturing the mind and for the ability to compete globally.” 

While further justifying the restructuring of the unity schools in the country by the Federal Government,, Ezekwesili said. “Our greatest concern is the fact that the ministry (Federal Ministry of Education) spends an inordinate amount of time and resources on these schools and constitute only 30 percent of the secondary schools in the country. 

Out of 6.4 million secondary school students, only 120,718 are in the unity schools. This number cannot on any account justify the disproportionate amount of staff and budget allocated to these schools. This has to be reversed.  We have to do things differently as the current business model can no longer be sustained”