Linus Oota, Lafia

Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has said that the Federal Government cannot ban Almajiri system. Instead, he said what government could do was to ensure that parents who take their children to Almajiri schools are compelled to take care of their needs.

He also said that like the RUGA project, Almajiri system is being misunderstood by Nigerians. He spoke on this and other issues.

 

Many people seem to have a different understanding about Almajiri system, give us an insight into the concept of the system in Nigeria?

Well, just like the controversial RUGA project that was completely misunderstood, I think we have totally misunderstood the Almajiri system too. The Almajiri system is a system of acquiring education and searching for knowledge where children leave the comfort of their homes and parents to go out for the purpose of acquiring Islamic knowledge. In the process of acquiring the knowledge, interaction also takes place and they have the opportunity to understand other places and culture.

Unfortunately however, these days, the system appears to have been completely compromised with begging on the streets and that is exactly the menace that has penetrated into the Almajiri system. Therefore, the government can no longer serve as a by- slander and watch it collapse, it has to come into it and develop it. The intervention must be in such a way that the system retains its objectives.

Going by the figures we have, there are more than 10 million children that are enrolled in the Almajiri system in the entire northern states, where most of them unfortunately today are serving as beggars. These ones spend all the time on the streets begging, rather than settle down for the education and knowledge they set out to acquire. This is a total deviation from what the Almajiri system is suppose to be. Therefore, it is the responsibility of government, parents and religious speakers to ensure that the original concept of the system is restored.

 

We hear that most of the children, who leave their homes for the Almajiri education, do so with the consent of their parents. Is that true?

It is very few that fall into this category, very few actually leave with the consent of their parents, and that is why I said the parents are responsible. For instance, in Nasarawa State recently, we came across a truck that came with these innocent children all the way from some states in the North to come for begging, if you go to Kano, you see plenty of them coming from other states like Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto and other states because Kano being a commercial city, they believe they can go there to look for something to do. So in some instance, their parents are very much aware of that. But my worry is that parents are running away from their own responsibilities, the actual rules of the Almajiri system is that if you are bringing a child to Almajiri school, you have to carter for such a child, you pay for the care of such a child either quarterly or yearly, but they just take and dump them there without any care, so it is only government that will enforce this kind of system, to make parents know their responsibilities.

There were attempts by various interests groups in the North to check that, do you have an idea why those efforts did not yield any result?

Most times in this country, we start efforts especially in a political era like ours, a governor want to start a programme, it becomes controversial and the governor becomes unpopular and he backs out or a political leader comes and starts a programme and he becomes very unpopular, the leader backs out. Look at the RUGA project for instance, it is a good programme but people misunderstood it and the government backed out. So that is what happens when you have this kind of problem. But we have to take responsibility as a government and say no, this is wrong, this cannot happen, we will not agree to this or for this to happen, we have to do A, B, C, it doesn’t matter if it will make me unpopular, so be it but we have to stand to protect the lives of this children because they become avenue for criminality and insurgency. They become tools for human trafficking; they become child labourers and are subjected to all kinds of abuses.

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Why has it become impossible for the Northern States Governors’ Forum to design measures and find solutions to it? What are your own plans about the Almajiri system in Nasarawa State?

Well, I don’t think the Northern States Governors’ Forum have not approach it but like I said, it is time we approach the issue, and address it squarely and not to back out. What we did was just to listen to so many states governors that came either through their SSGs and each one of them will tell you ‘we are doing something about it.’ We are establishing a law that will ensure that these children are protected, but when we say education is free, we are not even enforcing it to make sure it is free.

Some of us didn’t go to Almajiri School when we were young, I didn’t go outside my village to attend Almajiri school, I was attending Roman Catholic school in the morning and then in the evening, I go to Almajiri school, that was how I acquired my Islamic education. My parents didn’t send me outside my home state to acquire this, the northern governors are doing it, let me correct an impression, Almajiri problem is no longer problem of the North, I think it is a problem of the entire country. I live most of my life in the US and while in the US, we established an association called Zumunta, the logo of that association is our ethnic diversity, is our strength. I live in Lagos since my return from the US and there are so many Almajiri students in Lagos and it is a big problem for Lagos State government. Each time I travel to other places in the South, I saw these children. When insurgency started, everybody including foreigners suffered it, so I think the northern governors have to come together to salvage the situation. But the Federal Government must also come in to say that this is the direction we have to take, so we all can come together to see how we can tackle the problem headlong.

What is your take on the plan by the Federal Government to ban the system in the country?

No government in the world can say you cannot acquire Islamic education, what the government will probably abolish will be the street begging. I say so because some of us acquired both Islamic and western education.  Like I said, I went to a Roman Catholic Christian School and Almajiri Islamic school, so I acquired both, therefore the Federal Government cannot abolish Almajiri school. What government can do is ensure that no child is abused under the guise of acquiring Islamic education. The government can abolish street begging but not Almajiri School.

However, government can stop parents from taking a child to another state or country for the purpose of education of any form without providing for such a child, no parent should do that, so government has the right to abolish that and that is the direction we are also going in Nasarawa State regarding the Almajiri system.

As far as the state is concerned, we are going to make it a crime for a child to be begging on the streets as Almajiri, if it makes me unpopular, so be it, we have to protect the rights of these children, and we are approaching insecurity in Nasarawa State from three different angles. We are also ensuring that all those who graduated from school and all those who are going to school get jobs through agriculture. Agriculture is a big employer of labour, we are opening up areas for agriculture, the sugar production, livestock and milk production, so that is the direction we are going, to take out child beggars from our streets.

We are also given people technical and vocational skills so that people can have something to do to become employers of labour, and lastly, we are equally going to make sure that if you are sending a child to Almajiri school, you must provide for that child, if we find children on the streets who don’t have parents, we are going to take them to different area that the parents will not like, where you separate them from the parents completely. But we will take care of them and make sure that no new ones are brought to us, we will blocked that, so these are the ways that we are approaching it in Nasarawa State because we don’t want to continue to breed criminals.

Parents must take responsibility, you can’t bring children to the world and dump them somewhere and want somebody else to take care of them, you have to take care of your own children, so it requires a lot of education, it requires sensitisation, it requires parents having something to do, because some of these parents shy away from their responsibilities simply because they don’t have anything to take care of these children. You don’t bring children to the world and can’t take care of them. It is unacceptable.

What assistance will you request from the Federal Government in tackling this?

Every state will require one support or the other in this regard. In the past, before I joined politics, I saw a lot of Almajiri schools, built by the Jonathan administration but unfortunately some of them are not put to use because some were located where you do not even have Almajiri, I know of one in my area, it was for political reasons.

So, one of the things the Federal Government can do is to establish that it is a crime to abuse a child, it is a crime to bring children to this world and send them to Almajiri schools where you cannot take care of them, it is a crime to send children to the street for begging, the Federal Government can do all that.