Abuja, Nigeria - The Association of Model Islamic Schools Nigeria (AMIS) has protested what they refered to as "misrepresentation of Islam" by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and the Macmillan Publishing Company in separate recent activities.
The protest was contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Hajiya Asmau Yahaya and Muhammad Ali, national president and secretary general respectively at the end of the association's National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held at the Islamic Education Trust (IET), Minna Niger State.
The association expressed dismay at the rising insecurity and violence in the country, which culminated in the recent Independence anniversary twin bomb attack in Abuja and commiserate with victims and families of the attack. AMIS said that a comprehensive passage in the Hausa Paper 1, question 1 (objective test) of the recent June 2010 WAEC Examination seeks to create a negative impression about the value of Islamic education as compared to Western education.
"Against this background, AMIS is calling on WAEC and other examination bodies to henceforth examine critically all question set by the examiners to avoid such a value judgment. We believe both Islamic and Western education are important and complimentary and therefore call on examination bodies, especially WAEC to desist from imposing values," the communiqué said.
It also said that Macmillan Publishers in one of its text books, Mastering English, pages 212-214 contains misrepresentation of facts about Islam and urged the company to always cross check their facts.
National Public Relation Officer of AMIS, Musa S. Bukar, said that Islam was defined in the Macmillan book as the religion founded by Prophet Muhammad, when Islam is the religion of Allah; Salat defined as one of the five daily prayers for Muslims, when it include the five daily prayers; defining Shariah as Islamic criminal law instead of Islamic Law and describing December as the pilgrimage month for Muslims when it is worldly and widely know that Islam uses lunar calendar for its activities among others."