Nura Mohammed (10) gets up from the worn-out mat in the uncompleted building where he and his mates rest their heads at night. Goats may not find the small rooms where he and 15 others sleep conducive as there are no windows for cross-ventilation and the walls have given room to cracks looking as if it will fall the next minute. The occupants are, indeed, vulnerable to all forms of airborne diseases associated with the harsh Maiduguri weather. His face baked in the dust from the floor of the uncompleted building like someone coming out of sand dunes. He looks pale, apparently due to malnutrition, with blisters on his lips. The dryness of his face and rashes on his skin suggest the harmattan has taken its toll on him.

Mohammed performs ablution, says his morning prayers (Subhi) and joins his mates under the tree for the daily learning of the Qur`an. After the morning lessons, without taking his bath, he goes out like others with his bowl to beg for food. He repeats this ritual three times a day for as long as he is a student in this school. For him, life begins and ends at the school. For the likes of Mohammed, there is no room for dreams, ambition or career guidance. He lives life the way it comes -- on daily basis. This is a day in the life of Nura Mohammed, the face of the popular almajiri pupils, swarming the streets of northern Nigeria like locusts. He was brought to the Tsangaya School in Maiduguri three years ago by his father, a rice farmer in Zabarmari village of Jere local government area of Borno State. Mohammed from a polygamous family was enrolled in the school with his half-brother Umar (5) and since then they have lost contact with their parents.

Mohammed is one of the over five million children clad in tattered clothes begging on the streets of northern Nigeria and seeking Quranic education in the Tsangaya School, popularly called Almajirci.

The attitude of the society towards these almajiris is a complex paradox. Some treat them with contempt and exploit them, while others give them alms and food out of sympathy or after using them to run errands. This probably accounts for why most homes in northern Nigeria engage the services of these children on daily basis. Yusuf Ibrahim, an almajiri who was taken from Malumfashi in Katsina State to Sokoto in Sokoto State, accused the society of being antagonistic to them. He says, “No one wants to give you anything, you either have to wash plates, clothes or fetch water before they give you anything." The few who realise that they are being used often become aggressive and resent the tokens doled out to them. Yusuf Danjuma, a Maiduguri resident, said almajiris cannot be blamed for “carrying hostility and anger on their faces, as no one shows them affection but looks for an opportunity to use them for one purpose or the other before assisting them and many of them have never experienced parental care in their lives.

“The experience of Ilyasu Abdullahi, an almajiri for seven years, is an illustration of that assessment. Abdullahi who says he and four of his siblings are in different tsangaya schools in northern Nigeria claim that they visit their parents once in two years. He says though the condition under which they live is almost inhuman because basic things like food and clothing are lacking, they have no option because their parents are poor. His greatest problem is that each time he sees other children in company of their parents, he feels depressed. Abdullahi laments that the current economic hardship is taking its toll on them as they hardly get leftovers nowadays. Rather, they have resorted to doing menial jobs like nail cutting, cap weaving and cobbling to feed.

So why would a parent leave his child to fate? Bello Abdulsalam, a parent who has three children in the school, says he embraced the system because he lacks the means to cater for the children, adding that no one will like to lose contact with his kids for years. According to Goni Usman, a tsangaya mallam (teacher), "almajiri pupils learn the Qur`an under a teacher three times a day without good shelter, food or health care and away from their parents, some of who are hundreds of kilometres away. His consolation lies in the belief that his suffering in the world is for the reward that awaits him in heaven. He learns how to recite and memorise the holy book in verses, chapters and write them on a wooden slate called Allo. Afterwards, he cleans the verses he has memorised and he is instructed to proceed to another chapter (Surah) as soon as his teacher is satisfied that he has mastered the last one he was taught.

The word almajiri, according to Sheik Abba Aji, a renowned Maiduguri-based Islamic scholar, is a word borrowed from Arabic language and derived from the word "Al-Muhajir” meaning a seeker of Islamic knowledge. The almajiri system of education practised in northern Nigeria has its origin in the migration of Prophet Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. Those who migrated with the prophet to Medina were called “Al-Muhajirrun,” meaning emigrants, while those they met there were referred to as “Ansar,” meaning helpers. To Aji, “these emigrants (Al-Muhajirrun) because of the circumstances of their migration had no means of livelihood on getting to Medina, but based on the fraternity established by the prophet between the two groups, they did not engage in begging but rather were co-opted by the Ansar in their various trades and vocations as apprentices who were paid for their services.” Aji says Islam frowns at begging in any form because it reduces a Muslim`s self-esteem and dignity.

Hence, begging on the streets of northern Nigeria by these Tsangaya pupils is contrary to the teachings of Qur`an and Hadith.
Usman, who has memorised the Qur`an, says there is no specific age when a child is enrolled into the system, but the standard practice is seven years. The duration of his scholarship as an almajiri has no time limit but dependent on his intellectual capability as what matters is for him to memorise the Qur`an. Thus, he has three stages to fully graduate from the system, which comprises learning the Qur`an by heart (Tilawa), memorising it (Hafizi) and perfecting his ability to write the whole Qur`an devoid of errors on sheets of paper or slate off-hand (Darasi). This, to Usman, takes at least 20 or more years for one to accomplish. If a child starts at age seven, by the time he concludes the Quaranic study he would probably assume that he is too old to enrol for formal education.

Abdulkareem Kwando, a medical doctor in Kano, says the condition under which these street urchins live makes them to develop very strong immunity to illnesses and diseases, which sometimes baffle medical practitioners. He however warns that when they become infected it is usually fatal.

One baffling aspect of these almajiris is their eating habit. They consume all kinds of food, fresh or stale, but they rarely fall sick. The magazine ran into a group of almajiris in Wudil village of Kano State eating a combination of food they had warmed on a small kerosene stove. The food, a combination of locally made corn food (Tuwo), pasta and boiled yam altogether in one bowl, looked like a fresh vomit. Shah Muhammadu, one of the boys told the magazine that it is called “Jagala”, being a combination of food stored by an almajiri over a number of days. However, when an almajiri gets some fresh food, he could play pranks with his colleagues. At such times he would sneak away from his mates to eat alone.

In Kano State, according to a 2009 statistics from the education ministry, there are 1.6 million almajiris in 26,000 Tsangaya schools across the 44 local government areas of the state. Sokoto State has 1.1 million almajiris in 19,167 schools but the Sokoto State Ministry of Religious Affairs says this figure is not conclusive as there are still cases of omission in some of the villages; Kaduna State has 824,233, while Borno State, reputed as a centre of Islamic learning, has 389,048 almajiri pupils.

The breakdown for Borno State is as follows Borno indigenes 266,160, followed by those from other states totalling 118,280, non-Nigerians are 4,608. There are 4,464 Sangaya mallams. Algoni Kassim, desk officer, Quranic education, Borno State Universal Basic Education, says the figure is not conclusive, as the almajiri census is still ongoing. The National Council for the Welfare of Destitutes in Nigeria says there are about seven million almajiris or teenage beggars in northern Nigeria. These figures may have confirmed what Aja Nwachukwu, former minister of education, said in April 2008 that Nigeria accounted for over 11 million out 80 million children who were out of school in the world.

Goni Habib, an octogenarian, who has produced over 300 Qur`an memorisers who run schools across various states in northern Nigeria, says the Tsangaya system is a pattern of Islamic education acquisition by children of northern origin consisting of a mallam and his pupils. He says that the learning done in a small enclosure, serving as classroom, only requires a pupil having a wooden slate. The mallam and his pupils sometimes move about from one area to another depending on his age. He observes that there is no specific requirement for registration in a Tsangaya school. So, how does the teacher emerge? Habib says the teacher only needs the verbal certification of his own teacher before he can supervise pupils learning the Qur`an.

Though this system has produced prominent Islamic scholars of northern extraction like Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, Late Abubakar Gumi, Jaa`far Adam and Kala Rawi, Habib says the Tsangaya system as it is presently run is a corruption of the original. Hear him, “Almajiris, during our time about 60 years ago did not beg and were held in high esteem in northern Nigeria, houses in the neighbourhood bring food in calabash every day, we help our teacher on the farm, gather firewood from the bush which we use to read at night, assist his wife with domestic chores for food in return and no pupil is taxed as the teacher gets his reward from Allah.” He laments that at his age of 86, he sometimes feels like weeping because the present crop of Tsangaya students lacks the spirit of scholarship like endurance, morals, discipline and their intellectual capacity is low. The sad thing now is that they are vulnerable to criminal activities. So what is the authority doing to save the day?

The Northern Governors Forum at their meeting at the Hassan Usman Katsina House, Kaduna in 2000 pledged to put an end to the almajiri syndrome through structural reforms. At the meeting where they adopted far-reaching resolutions, the governors identified worst hit areas like Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano and Borno states. However, nine years after, little or nothing seems to have been achieved and the present northern governors are still singing the old tune. The result is that the almajiris are growing in geometrical progression, turning the once lofty system of Quranic education into another form of modern slavery and the worst form of child abuse. This is because on daily basis they are taken to the cities in hundreds and in trailers and dumped with various mallams.

Of all the northern states, only Kano and Sokoto have made appreciable progress towards restructuring the Tsangaya system by setting up pilot programmes to test-run model schools. Shehu Galadanci, special adviser to Kano State governor on education and Information Technology, whose office oversees the programme, says four out of six planned, pilot schools have been set up in Tudun Wada, Gwarzo, Wudil and Ungogo.

Musa Maitafsir, a professor and Sokoto State commissioner for religious affairs, says N67 million has been earmarked for building four model schools at four different entry points into the state. The first one, consisting of four blocks of eight classrooms, a storey building and a mosque, located on Gusau road, has reached advanced stage of completion. He says uniforms, books and hostel accommodation will be provided free of charge. Other ones will be sited on Birnin Kebbi road, Ilela and Wurno road.

Sources say the state government was initially giving monthly allowance and food items to the mallams to feed themselves and the children, but government stopped it when it learnt that the mallams were diverting or appropriating the money. Galadanci, however, denies the claim, saying that the programme was stopped because the burden of financial commitment was much on the state government as “it was a big challenge feeding 26,000 Sangaya schools and maintaining 3,000 conventional schools.” The new approach by government was to cater for those in the model schools and give seedlings, fertilisers and farm implements to mallams living in rural areas.

Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State had in 2006 promised to integrate the Tsangaya system into western education. But three years after, his government is still compiling the list of Sangaya pupils and teachers. Mohammed Imam, commissioner for education, says the state government has set up a committee of Ulamas to work out the modalities, but the magazine`s investigations do not reveal anything on ground.

Goni Zarami, Borno State chairman, Tsangaya association, says the governor lacks the political will to reform the system as he has written 37 letters to him from 2003 on how to change the fortunes of the system but no response. “I am tired and vowed not to write again as the monthly allowance given to 1,090 Tsangaya mallams of N3,000 monthly started by the Kachallah administration is still what we are living on.

Salisu Tambuwal, a Zamfara-based Islamic scholar, reads hypocrisy into the supposed efforts of the northern governors. He says for the nine years some impact should have been made in the area of poverty alleviation, which is the root cause of this problem. To him, “there is no sincerity in their hearts because if they eradicate the problem, there will be no place for them to recruit political thugs, and that is why what we hear on daily basis is government officials going to Malaysia and Egypt to understudy how their own Tsangaya system is run.” Tambuwal alludes to reports of some panels probing ethno-religious crises in the region, which indicted almajiris as being ready foot soldiers oiling the vehicle of conflagration.

Mustapha Sani, another Tsangaya student for eight years, describes the much- talked-about plan by government to integrate the Tsangaya system into formal education as a fluke. “We are tired of so much talk, but no action as many government officials have come to our school to record our number and needs but nothing comes out of it,” says Sani.

Sani, apparently echoing the views of many of his mates and mallams across northern Nigeria, believes the integration is like trying to merge water and fire. He says he is against the integration, as it will make the almajiris abandon Islamic teachings for western values.

This brings to the fore another aspect of the conflict where mallams and the pupils see the reform as a threat to their religious belief. The age-long cultural and religious belief in the North is that western education has no value to the Muslim. Perhaps, the reality is that the mallams see the move as a way of scrapping their means of survival. For instance, such a reform will take away the midweek tax, called ``Kudin Sati``, imposed on all almajiris by the teachers.

Adamu Hussein, a Sokoto-based Islamic scholar, has described Muslim scholars condemning western education as "intellectually deficient persons.” Backing up his submission, the scholar said Prophet Muhammad urged all Muslims in his Hadith to seek knowledge in all its ramifications and never allow themselves to be held down by geographical barriers.” He adds that the image problem facing Muslims around the world today makes it compulsory for adherents of the Islamic faith to lead the way in the search for knowledge about science, medicine, engineering and information and communication technology so as to rebrand themselves.

The chairman of Northern Governors Forum, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has stressed the need for societal reorientation in the North. Hear him: “We need to discourage the ranka ya dade syndrome, which abuses and dehumanises the people by offering them stipends out of the often stolen wealth, and encourages laziness while some of us go about in arrogance. We also need to address the embarrassing almajiri phenomenon in our states; we need to question what appears as the Islamisation of poverty. We need to ask, why do we have endemic poverty in Muslims dominated settlements, when Allah has enjoined the faithful to balance the search for the thereafter with the search for this world? ”

Aliyu, who was speaking at a one-day symposium on Poverty Eradication in Northern States, organised by the Niger State Community of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, put the average poverty rate in the region at 71 per cent, noting that traditional rulers in the country, particularly in the North, are corrupt, support corruption and have lost the respect and moral authority to correct their subjects. The passage of the Child`s Rights Act 2003 by the National Assembly gave a glimmer of hope that it might be the magic wand to save these children. But, the refusal of most northern states to domesticate the law as directed by the federal government has become like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Umar Labaran, a legal practitioner and Borno State chairman of Muslim Lawyers Association of Nigeria, says the act seeks to confer unto parents those duties, responsibilities and obligations to their children, whose realisation will lead to proper development of the child .
Apart from Zamfara State whose lawmakers passed a law meant to check child abuse, all others have rejected it outrightly.

Reason: they argue that the contents contradict Islamic values and also a deliberate attempt to bring western values which allow a child to seek redress in the courts against his parents should he feel his rights have been trampled upon. The act, according to the magazine`s findings, has about 16 sections which most northern states are contesting. Prominent among the issues raised in these contentious sections are giving equal rights to children born in and outside wedlock, prohibition of child betrothal and marriage, prohibition of hawking by children, use of scientific tests to determine paternity and maternity and right to dignity and provisions of guidance with respect to child`s responsibilities.

Hadiza Magaji, treasurer of the lawyers` association and deputy registrar, Borno State High Court, says the act, despite the criticisms, is not completely a useless document as it has very good provisions to take care of the almajiri syndrome. What is required is a comprehensive review to expunge all aspects considered contradictory to the teachings of Islam as the children are victims of all sorts of exploitation by the society including ritualists.”

Another pre-disposing factor to the growing number of almajiri pupils in the North is the peoples` antagonism towards family planning and child spacing citing the hadith of Prophet Mohammed which says, “Go forth my congregation, get married and multiply so that I will be proud of you.” But Adamu Sani, a veterinary doctor, says this aspect of the Hadith has been grossly misrepresented. He says under Sharia, some of the basic rights of a child are food, shelter, clothing and education and so any parent who fails in this direction has an explanation to give before Allah.” Adamu adds that there are birth control practices accepted by Islam and economic realities of today make it necessary for every parent to breed those children he can cater for.

Maikaramba Sadiq, Borno State co-ordinator, Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO, says the northern culture is the most antagonistic culture towards fundamental human rights because Islam frowns at child abuse and being dirty. He added that “almajiris are the dirtiest set of people in the society and the Qur`an says one`s faith is incomplete unless you are clean.”
Musa Maitafsir says the findings of the committee set up by the Sokoto State government has revealed that there is proliferation of almajiris for three reasons: “The love for Quranic education, poverty and redundancy in the villages.” He says, “By May when you go to these Tsangaya schools you find very few pupils but once the food harvest starts going down, the parents start sending the children back in batches.”

The National Assembly through the Senate made another effort to end the almajiri problem by proposing a bill for the enactment of the National Commission for the Eradication of Child Destitution in Nigeria in 2008. The bill, popularly known as the almajiri bill and sponsored by Umaru Argungu and 31 others, seeks to punish any proprietor of an unregistered Tsangaya school with two years jail term. Does the solution really lie in imposing sanctions on a people that believe they are observing a religious injunction? What really can be done, in the face of the opposition by the almajiris and the malams? The duo of Labaran and Abba Aji believe the way forward is for the law and constitution to recognise it as a system of education and also inculcate into its curriculum, a form of trade or vocation that the almajiris will be acquiring over the years so as to have something to fall back on after graduation.

While it remains to be seen if the pilot programmes currently being run in Kano and Sokoto states will not go with the governors who initiated them, the fate of almajiris in the region remains uncertain. This is because as many northern governors strategise for 2011, either for re-election or to instal successors, the almajiris, living like orphans, raise up their hands awaiting Allah`s divine favour for a better tomorrow.

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