Islamic group Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has linkened the Miss Nigeria pageant to the popular reality TV show Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) after Kano State Hisbah Board said they would question the parents of the pageant’s 2021 winner Shatu Garko.
Garko, 18, is the first hijab-wearing model from Kano to win the pageant since inception in 1957.
According to MURIC director Prof. Ishaq Akintola, even if Garko was wearing a hijab she “catwalked with thousands of men eating her up with their eyes.”
The group said Muslims do not participate in any beauty pageant, according to Quran Chapter 24, Verse 31; and Quran Chapter 33, Verse 59.
Akintola, a professor of Islamic Eschatology at the Lagos State University said, “We are not quite impressed by the development because the environment itself is un-Islamic – women parading their bodies and all of that. Hers may be different but she is not supposed to mix with those kinds of people. It is like going for BBNaija and using hijab or dressing like a Muslim but you participated in BBNaija where people make love before the camera and millions of Nigerians are watching.
“In a beauty pageant, women also parade their bodies in stages, they come in bikini and all of that. It is not an exercise a Muslim lady should participate in, people who are decent, who have shame, who have honour, who would not display their nudity, who would not expose their bums for millions of naira should not participate in such pageants.”
Organisers of the Miss Nigeria pageant have since scrapped the wearing of swimsuit and clothes that expose the bodies of contestants.
However, MURIC backed the move by Hisbah to invite Garko’s parents for questioning.
