It was a good piece of news to hear that northern governors have made up their minds to abolish the almajiri system as well as street begging, two of the critical aspects of Nigeria’s northern region requiring urgent attention. The person who made this known was Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF), Simon Lalong. Lalong, the Plateau State governor, said the forum was working towards abolishing begging and almajiri practice in the north, as well as ensure that each child benefited from formal education. The governor said he and his colleagues had resolved not to tolerate any form of begging again from children who were supposed to be in school. He spoke in Jos, the state capital, while bidding farewell to the 1,195 intending pilgrims of the state origin, who were leaving for Saudi Arabia to perform hajj.
Perhaps this is one of the most salutary ideas from the northern part of the country in recent times. Many people have agreed that there is something wrong with the way the almajiri system was being run and that, this, coupled with street begging, had remained one of the most daunting challenges facing the northern region. Unfortunately, not many have agreed on the way out of the mess. Not a few northerners, particularly the elite, had tried to draw a line between almajiri as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and street begging. They had tried to romanticise almajiri as an acceptable Islamic practice.
The good news these days, however, is that some other people are now coming out from the region to say that almajiri, by whatever colouration, has become antediluvian and is high time it was reformed. So, basically, what is the almajiri system? Arif Kasim Bala, a lawyer of note describes the concept thus: “In traffic everyday around major towns in northern Nigeria, you see boys with plastic bowls begging. When I was much younger, I used to mistake these children for orphans but they are not. They are students of Islamic boarding schools, known as almajiri, People send their children from all over northern Nigeria to get Islamic education from respected Islamic teachers known as Mallams. This practice is common in many West African countries and goes as far as Gambia and Senegal. Some children come from as far as Chad, Niger and Sudan to learn at the feet of some Mallams in Nigeria. These children are as young as four or five years of age.”
But the truth, of course, now, is that the line between almajiri and street begging is blurred. Whilst almajiri might have worked perfectly many years ago, when population was relatively manageable and the economy was booming, it has now become anachronistic. The demography has since changed. For example, it has been widely reported that there are about 10 million out-of-school children in the northern part of the country alone. We need no one to tell us that these are potential bombs that may explode at any time.
But no one should be under the illusion that abolishing the almajiri system would be an easy matter. Something that has gone on for ages cannot be decreed out of existence overnight. It requires systematic planning and collaboration among all the critical stakeholders that have come to recognise the issue as the socio-economic malaise that it is. I have said it on this platform several times; that a child that one did not train (educate) will eventually end up selling cheaply the house that one struggled to build. This is because he would lack the capacity to know what to do with such vital investment. So, he would end up selling it at a give-away price and still see the peanuts he collected as proceeds as commensurate with what he sold just because he did not have the capacity to properly assess the property.
But, to adequately address the almajiri problem, we need to understand the psyche of those reaping from the system. A friend once told the story of what a northern elite said when they were travelling somewhere around the north a few years ago. My friend said he was alarmed by the sheer number of children he saw on the streets at a time when their age mates in other parts of the country were in school; apparently it was in the morning hours. He said the reply of his friend from the north stunned him. You want to know? I’ll tell you. Wait for it! He said who would cater to the needs of his own children if every child went to school!
This answer might have been a Freudian slip, but that was his response to the question of why those children were not in school. And it was instructive. Many northern elite might scream at this response today, but that is the simple truth about this almajiri phenomenon. Those of the northern elite who are truthful to themselves know this for a notorious fact, even if they are not willing to so admit publicly. Many of them send their children to some of the best schools around the world even after studying Qur’anic education, to study some of the best courses one can think of, but these foreign schools are not good for the children of the talakawa (the masses). Rather, they should be satisfied with the limited Qur’anic education they acquire, which cannot take them anywhere, not to talk of take them home.
This is the cause of the huge army of illiterate and ignorant children in the region who are now a pain in the neck for the rest of the society. The truth of the matter is that the almajiri practice has become a source of embarrassment even to the name of Islam. The ignorance, fuelled by the prevalent illiteracy in the region is a drag on national development because no country with such a high illiteracy rate can make progress, with education as the bedrock of national development. It is this same illiteracy and ignorance that fuel the prevalence of vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF) in the region.
This is one strong point why the northern governors who appear to be feeling the negative effects of this huge army of illiterates now should be supported by all patriotic Nigerians. I only hope their threat to do something meaningful about the issue is not political rhetoric; I hope they would carry out the threat. But this is a matter requiring the cooperation of all the stakeholders, including the Federal Government that has also made known its intention to intervene in the matter. They do not have to work at cross-purposes. They should rather work collectively to end one of the major eye sores afflicting the northern region.
Schools have to be built and well equipped to enable the pupils and students learn in a conducive atmosphere. The school feeding should be intensified and made to speak to the diverse needs of the different people in the country. In the same manner, there should be massive enlightenment on family planning. Parents must be ready to give birth to only the children that they can cater for. There is no point giving birth to children only to dump them on the streets or on some other people who cannot take care of themselves. We need to redirect the minds of the idle youths from the streets to the schools. As the saying goes, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. So many idle hands are lurking around, and for as long as they remain in that condition, the rest of us should not think we can sleep with our two eyes closed. That is already evident in the level of insecurity in the country.