THE ALMAJIRI CHILDREN ARE GOD’S HERITAGE NOT OUTCASTS!

The founders of the Almajiri System of Education which provided basic Qur’anic studies for the Muslim kindergartens and children in their formative ages had very good intentions of training up and equipping their wards with moral and spiritual education that would prepare them to cope with unavoidable societal tasks and civil responsibilities of the future! Since education in all forms; formal or informal; practical, technical or purely academic in nature; moral or religious; combine to establish a concrete foundation and solid bedrock for an overall political and socio-economic developmental progress of the global human population, Nigeria’s Almajiri Education System cannot be an exception and definitely not a misplaced priority!

In recent times the Almajiri Education System which had attracted negative debates, comments, analysis and expositions from the Nigerian Civil Society groups and the social media for being anathema, is indeed a misunderstood cultural issue that demands a deliberate, painstaking, genuine and objective perspective for better understanding. Critics of the system which include Islamic scholars and teachers, who were not actually out to condemn it were more concerned to explain that it was not an inclusive injunction of the Qar’an but was not a misplaced early life priority form of Qar’anic education for Muslim children if meticulously handled! Others totally condemned the system which allowed for Almajiri students to indulge in street-begging which they claimed was a disgraceful act to Islam and blamed parents who indulged in bearing many children they could not train. The word Almajiri, according to our research derives from the Arabic “Almuhajir” which translated means, an immigrant and became an appellate to Qur’anic students of Northern Nigeria extraction who migrate from place to place to obtain Islamic education. The concept of the Almajiri’s form of education was from inception before the colonial era and deductions from the teachings of Usman Dan Fodio, the legendary Islamic guru between the 18th-19th Century, suggested that the Qur’ran provided ideal rudimentary and religious knowledge of inculcating moral behavioural patterns among Muslim youths which would conform them with acceptable norms in their various societies. The Almajiri System of Education must not be confused with the Fulani Nomadic Primary Education emergency policy which the immediate past Federal Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Administration tinkered with as political patronage contract of classroom buildings worth several billions of naira, for some of its Northern States members, but which became moribund on delivery and has remained an abandoned elephant project now lying fallow!
Proponents of the Almajiri Islamic form of education are more concerned about the escalating and alarming population of the Almajiri beggars on the Nigerian streets which has been put at between 10 and 20 million youths that have remained out of school within the past five years! Except for the Boko Haram insurgents who declared war on Western Education, the Muslim majority population encouraged all forms of education, and vocations that complimented their life-style positively. The Sultan of Sokoto and the Emir of Kano had respectively lent their voices for State Governments intervention for an improved Almajiri’s education curriculum that would totally eliminate street-begging but encourage skill acquisition that would provide them with better living conditions! “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD and the fruit of the womb is his reward.“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth.“Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with their enemies in the gate” [Psalm. 127:3-5].The import of the preceding biblical quotation is that procreation remains a divine prerogative and HE blesses his creation with offspring as HE deemed fit! According to this scripture, the man with lots of children had an advantage, provided he trained them all to stand for positive recognition in the society!“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” [Proverbs.22:6].

Though more prevalent in the Northern parts of Nigeria, an Almajiri becomes a roaming societal danger when he is neither properly versed in the Islamic studies nor Western education; neither cared for by his parents, nor by government and society; but would rather seek for survival on the streets of different towns, cities and countries of his migration which are full of crimes and all manner of vices under Heaven!

STREET-BEGGING HAS BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH DESTITUTION AND ALMAJIRISM!
And whereas his counterparts who had the right template of the Qur’anic education, coupled with the Western or Eastern education have become the professional experts, technocrats and political leaders of their nations, the destitute beggar remained, the “scumbag” and perpetual menace on the streets of Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Maiduguri, Abuja etc. This innuendo clearly confirmed the research that claimed that TWO CLASSES OF ALMAJIRIS existed side by side; (students and beggars)! The students moved on in life and succeed while the beggars got stuck on the streets with all its vices and subsequently became pick-pockets, robbers, political thugs and eventually insurgents and international terrorists! The Almajiri student attended regular classes and his parent paid the “Alarama”, (teacher), for his services while his beggar counterpart could hardly attend classes because neither him nor his parents could afford the teacher’s fee and because he never made enough savings from begging, he permanently absconded from classes!

Questions begging for answers and solutions!
Do the parents, governments and society have obligations to these God-given children who were born very innocent and oblivious of a sinful world to which they did not bargain for?

What about the fundamental human rights of the Almajiri child under the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Child Rights Act which Nigeria adopted in 2003 as a signatory to the pact?
What about his right to education, vocational skills, gainful employment and living wages as entrenched in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999?
What impact has the six-year-old Nigerian-based Almajiri Foundation made to create national awareness and proffer urgent solutions to these children’s plight?

In 2008 some 54 Northern Senators of the National Assembly co-sponsored a bill tagged “National Commission for the Eradication of Child Destitution” in response to the hues and cries over the Almajiri child-beggar menace which continued to give bad image to the country through the tourism portfolio window of international treaties, but since July 2009 when it received the baptism of a second reading, it went limbo! The bill purposed to establish the registration of all Almajiri schools under the Commission with stiff penalties of two years imprisonment without an option of fine to defaulters and also similar punishment to any Mallam whose students went a-begging in order to nip in the bud all man-made impediments and challenges militating against the effective implementation of the Child Rights Act 2003 once and for all!

What Way Forward?
The Senators should urgently dust up the 2008 National Commission for the Eradication of Child Destitution Bill which scaled second reading in July 2009 and give it priority attention for fresh readings and quick passage into law! Civil Society Groups and the Almajiri Foundation should intensify advocacy on the need for parents to limit their offspring to a reasonable and manageable number that they could train up and educate meaningfully and according to their financial capacity! We are not unmindful that some of the birth- prevention pills of the family planning programmes had failed to prevent some children from being born!
Simultaneously, immediate steps should be taken by governments at all levels to round-up and take these unfortunate and innocent children off the streets and create temporary camps to engage them with some vocations of their interests with a fresh start in Qur’anic and Western education and also skill acquisition under the supervision of the various Ministries of Youths and Social Development! After three months of intensive training, they should be transferred and delivered into the hands of trained and skilled teachers in the conventional primary or secondary schools on scholarship programmes of totally free education of tuition, books, uniforms etc; in their choice subjects! Efforts should be made to identify and empower parents of the children who were still alive in order to re-ignite filial obligations and engender family values. Advocacy against unregistered Almajiri Qur’anic Schools should also remain a regular broadcast on the electronic media [radio/television] and the print media, [newspapers and magazines]. National awareness to address all of the above is very urgent and critical at this stage when a divinely-sent President who fears God is running the affairs of the Change Government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and is prepared with his team to change the destiny of the innocent Almajiri youths for the best!

Kudos to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS)?
Ali Modu Sheriff was a two-term Governor of Bornu State (1999-2007), who “sub-consciously” or “inadvertently” bred the nucleus of today’s Boko Haram terrorists, when he neither sent them to school nor impacted them with any form of skills except for the regular distribution of Friday ZAKAT (almsgiving/religious tax) of thousands of Five Naira notes incentive from open-roof Jeeps for EIGHT YEARS! Without any gainful employments those youths became very dangerous tools who eventually metamorphosed into his political thugs in all elections, State or Local Governmnet! Those who were too young to be recruited became the Almajiri student beggars since that option turned out to be the only affordable educational opportunity available to them! SAS was fingered by a Federal Government appointed Australian Consultant Hostage Negotiator in 2014 as one of Boko Haram sponsors but he severally denied the allegation! As the time of this publication, SAS had been confirmed as the new Chairman of the failed PDP to pilot its affairs for the three months before a National Convention! Posterity would no doubt remember and judge Ali Modu Sheriff for initiating and encouraging Almajiri street begging which bred the urchins and subsequently the insurgents and the terrorists! Almajiri street-begging which has become a national issue and an abnormality which is detrimental to the children psyche and it is no longer acceptable in view of the enormous dangers posed against the Nigerian societies.

The time to abolish Almajiri street-begging is NOW and all hands must be on deck!
Current leaders of Nigeria (the giant of Africa with the highest human population and highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP),) should be reminded that the nation’s future political and economic achievements rests squarely in the hands of these “more or less abandoned children” through the special grace of the Almighty God who created them in HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS FOR SIGNS AND WONDERS!


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066 g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.

Almajiris are very Annoying. When they want to be you , they'd start hold your shirt and be saying something you don't understand like " Allah will pollow u , God will funish you...etc" and you'd have no choice than to give them money

No one except their govt made them an outcast, for not giving them purposeful education

Only Athiests don't know that they are a Heritage of God.

hw on earth wil an alhaji let his child 2 b mving abt craving 4 food in d name of almajiri? I knw wat am sayin