Asisat Oshoala’s Brouhaha | By Muideen Olagunju

Religion apart, the dressing of a woman is always a sociocultural topic in our clime. Whereas a man can yank off his top to do chores or his daily job in public, a woman can hardly do that lest she would be considered to have either gone bonkers or has gone morally bankrupt.

Asisat’s triumphant jubilation that has sparked religious debates and even insults upon Islam should be viewed against the backdrop of its spontaneity of it. The lady is one of the most capped players on the team, and she is the most popular African female football player. In her career, she is known to have sometimes celebrated her goals by doing the “Scud”, an aspect of the Muslim prayer involving dropping on one’s knees with the forehead touching the ground. It’s an act that is not strange to all the Abrahamic religions. But in this one incredible moment when the Super Falcons scored a further lead against the more fancied Aussies, Asisat did what many footballers do out of pure elation when they score. Pull off the shirt. Among males, it’s a common sight. Among females, it is a very rare and often strange sight. The reason for this is a no-brainer. Women have a lot more to cover under basic rules of decency than men. You can’t even equate the “kiss my a*s” gesture of pulling down the trousers by a man with that of a woman. They are poles apart.

So, Asisat, a Muslim, pulled off her jersey to reveal a sport chest strap (not a bra per se) in a delirious goal celebration and then dropped down to do the “sujud” a while after. Take it or leave it, that’s an objectionable act in Islam. It being a talking point is absolutely normal, and even her biological father expressed his displeasure about it. She has even apologized to her father about it. Forget the issue of hypocrisy. That’s a universal human attribute. It still doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try to promote what is right and object to what is wrong.

I guess coming on the heels of the rather excessive criticism of Davido over a dance-in-a-mosque video and the Ilorin Muslims/Traditionalists impasse (for which I hold the firm opinion that freedom of religion is a constitutional right), many people have had enough of the fundamentalist views coming from certain Muslim quarters, hence the counter-attacks directed at those doing the condemnation. Why always the Muslims?

Asisat did what she did in the heat of the moment. From the Islamic point of view, it is wrong. There are no two ways about it.
However, the criticisms must be temperate, especially in consideration of the fact that it happened during a sports event that brought so much joy to Nigerians.

When all the dust settles, the moral angle will still be on the horizon. Many people doing the counter-attacks will be embarrassed if their daughters are clad in only bras in public. So what’s the fuss about? In the grand scheme of things, what I see is a lack of appreciation of spontaneity on a football pitch by some Muslims on the one hand and the “they-have-come-again” mentality from those who are always alarmed when fundamentalist Muslim opinion rents the air on the other hand.

 Muideen Olagunju, a lawyer and politician, writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.