Any place for the almajiri? Rejected by parents, scorned by society and abused by politicians

A society which eats, debases and abuses its young is a coven run by witches. The almajiri children are innocents socialised into a culture and system they did not create. They are just unlucky to be born in an unfortunate axis of the world. They did not make their circumstances or their world; they were thrust into it.

They live but are not given a life. They are programmed like hunter-robots to lead a life of the hunt – hunt for alms.

I witnessed the almajiri affliction during my stay in Kaduna and visits to Kano and Katsina years ago. This was long before the threat of banditry and kidnapping in the north. These street kids are cultured to hunt-beg. They demand, and they seem assured that it is the right thing to do. They could intrude on your privacy to demand alms without flinching. They are made bold in their quest by a society that has normalised such an existence.

I was always trepidated seeing them around; life has been made a trifle for them, so they cared not about anything. It is the reason they could easily be deployed by politicians to cause riots and unrest. I knew a day of reckoning would come. When I got a job in Abuja, I exhaled. I was happy to leave the ‘’crime scene’’.

Alas! The nation’s capital is now grappling with its own almajiri problem. It is clear we cannot wish away the almajiri irritation. It is a northern Nigeria problem, but also a Nigeria challenge.

Really, these almajiri children are the victims of the situation!

In an article in February entitled ‘The northern elite created these bandits’, I alluded the current wave of banditry and kidnapping to the failures of the northern elite in fundamentally addressing the almajiri problem.
For sake perspicuity, I will reproduce a section here.

A study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) put the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria at 13.5 million – as of 2018. An unimpressive mass of this number comes from Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, and other northern states.

In December 2019, Jigawa State Government announced it would open a bidding process for the construction of 95 mosques across the state. This is a state with over 800,000 out-of-school children,

According to a survey by the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN), there are more than 800,000 out-of-school children between the age of three and 18 in Jigawa.

In Kano, there are about one million out-of-school children in the state. This is according to Peter Hawkins, the UNICEF representative to Nigeria, who disclosed this at a four-day workshop organised for commissioners and permanent secretaries from the 19 Northern states in August 2019.

In Katsina, there are approximately one million out-of-school children. Though, Aminu Masari, the governor of the state, put the number at 996,000. Ditto Zamfara.

In addition, reports by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) reveal that the North-West region has the highest number of drug-related arrests in years, with 2,205 arrests in 2015 alone. A motion on drug abuse in the north adopted by the senate in 2017 disclosed that three million bottles of codeine were consumed by drug abusers daily in Kano and Jigawa.

Also, Mojisola Adeyeye, director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), revealed that 70 percent of the youth essentially, the young boys, abuse illicit drugs in Kano.

When you put all these numbers together what you have is almajiris, chaos, banditry and kidnapping.

READ MORE: https://thebelltimesng.com/2020/05/05/any-place-for-the-almajiri-rejected-by-parents-scorned-by-society-and-abused-by-politicians/

I read a disturbing article about the Almajiris, deeply disturbing. Those boys are born to beg for the family, the are then sent to islamic school and are at risk of sexual abuse. Their Northern leaders have failed them.

I feel for the innocent kids,they where never part of the problem, they never created it but they are the victims now.

Really i feel for them. GOJ wanted to build school for them, they said no Sanusi asked them to focus on education they rejected him.

Now Christians will be carrying their almajiri and be feeding and taking care them. Do you think they will be muslim again. Never.

Hummm. True talk, all this almaijuri is killing our system and i think it's lack of education that's causing this. The northern governors should pls do the needful

Almajirinci

The most selfish leaders we have in Nigeria are from the north.
Their children will go to good school, get good jobs but the almajiri will be sent to go and learn how to recite Koran.
They even justify their wicked actions.
The indimis, the buharis, atiku sanusi( judge sanusi from when he was first band executive to cbn governor) to el rufai to so many of them.
They don't care. They only remember this children during election or any agenda they want to propagate.

Very wicked set of people.

The only way they pour they fury at the government ,they are recruit for terrorism

Faithful4real:
Really i feel for them. GOJ wanted to build school for them, they said no Sanusi asked them to focus on education they rejected him.

Now Christians will be carrying their almajiri and be feeding and taking care them. Do you think they will be muslim again. Never.

Sanusi remembered them when his cards were already crumbling.
He too used them.
I have never seen any northern elite that care for almajiri.

There was this late alhaja non kano, that woman was a national figure, took a lot of them in and trained them.
Read about her here one time.
That is somebody who loves not because of what she will gain but from her heart.
No northern Muslim elite has ever done that.

ok

Thanks for this piece, OP. It’s no news that most of our politicians are wicked and inhuman. What I find very disturbing is the number of ordinary citizens who support some of the inhuman decisions of our government.

How can State governments arrest poor children, pack them in a vehicle like sardine without testing them for cironavirus and then drive them to another state in the country? How can we say we are fighting CoronaVirus in that manner? Apart from exposing those children to the virus in the process, we are also violating their fundamental human right to live anywhere in Nigeria.

According to the late sage, government should operate like the sun that shines on everybody without discrimination. The government of Nigeria at all levels should work for everybody irrespective of state of origin or state of residence. Those Almajiri children that we are tossing from one state to the other and exposing to all sorts of risk will grow up to become security threats to all of us tomorrow.

FG should immediately stop the internal deportation of these children and force state governments to take care of them wherever they are.

MelaninSkinGirl:
I read a disturbing article about the Almajiris, deeply disturbing. Those boys are born to beg for the family, the are then sent to islamic school and are at risk of sexual abuse. Their Northern leaders have failed them.

Pls where can i see the articule wanna get disturbed....if its last good thing i do on earth

Returning them to their states is nonsense those state should take care of them after all them dey use them for election,use them for election now you're returning them back, that is wickedness

Yongsiggz:



Pls where can i see the articule wanna get disturbed....if its last good thing i do on earth

Very depressing read, you will have more sympathy for them.

https://guardian.ng/news/the-almajiri-abused-neglected/