Gidan Mari(Rehabilation Center): What went wrong?
By Tijjani Dalhat Usman

Years back Gidan Mari are meant for rehabilitating children and adults who deviate from the norms and values of their immediate society. Therefore it is strategically built to reform juvenile delinquents using a mixture of physical discipline and spiritual prowess.

"Mari", itself, is a locally-made iron applied on the legs of inmates to restrict their movements.

The idea behind this is to help them withdraw from any form of social vices and enroll them to Islamic teachings and way of life.

There are lots of Islamic Scholars who went through this Rehabilitation.

It is a taboo in the North especially in those days to take your relatives to psychiatric hospital for treatment so they see Gidan Mari as an alternative.

The deviant's individual was usually brought by their parents, family and close relatives which are in one way or the other taking care of the responsibility of the person.

Money will paid to the management of Gidan Mari to cater the needs of the person under rehabilitation. The management normally employed some people to cook food the detained individuals. Water and other social amenities are made available to the deliquents with respect to the amount of money paid by parents or family.

In terms of the shelter, there segregation between children and adults. So as not allow interaction which may bring about exposure to certain crimes which the young ones are not familiar with.

What brings about the chaos?

Child abuse of any form is condemnable irrespective of who is involved.

The 21st century Gidan Mari came with so many changes as a results of increase in the rate of crimes in the society. To the extend that parents are no longer interested in knowing the condition of thier children in Gidan Mari. What matters to them is they are far away from them and that will stop getting daily complaints about them from the society.

So the management sees this as an opportunity to run the centre the way they like. And in most cases the person who was initially in charge of the centre is either dead or incapacitated. The money meant for taking care of the the individuals will be diverted to something else.
Corruption has greatly affected every aspect of our life. No matter how little opportunity is made available to us we will misused it.

And poor condition of life in Gidan Mari can make them to embrace anything at their disposal despite it will ease thier life.

The blame should be put upon their parents and the Management of the Gidan Mari.

Gidan Mari should be discarded and bring another way of handling juvenile deliquents and other deviant adults in our society. Preferably counseling.

Outcry on Homosexuality in Gidan Mari is a Media Hypocrisy to diminished the image of some people. We do know Homosexuality and Lesbianism exists in every environment where same individual are allowed to sleep and live together over a long period of time.

To make it more clearer the case of homosexuality is not a new issue especially in Government and Private own Boarding School among Seniors and Juniors Students. Most of the time the school authority knew about the issues but kept quiet and handle the matter internally.

It is inhuman and abuse to the defiled children to share their story depicting thier faces on social media.

©️Tijjani Dalhat Usman