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Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu - Politics - Nairaland

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Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu by VBCampaign: 11:03pm On Feb 19, 2021
Bandits/Boko Haram/Almajiri

When I concluded my first degree and returned from NYSC in 2003, I had no job and will remain like that for three years before getting a teaching job with a private school.

Yet, in those three years I felt I was super-human. I had no money and sometimes went without food but I always had this confidence around me. Besides the grace of God, one thing that raised my head high was the fact that I had an education. Not just a mere degree, but the fact that placed in any situation I knew I could prosper in it. I could decipher any plan and offer a coherent argument for any idea. I knew in my heart of hearts that it was just a matter of time my poverty will be a thing of the past.

I schooled in Northern Nigeria and even in the late 1990s and early 2000s I was already concerned with what will become of the army of uneducated young people that populated that region of the country.

One day, while in school, sometimes in the year 2000, I was taking public transport from Aviation to Samaru in Zaria. Our bus stopped for a moment in front of ABU first gate and a deluge of Almajiri boys poured into the road, crossing to the other side of the road. In another year I would be done with school, but here were an army of young people on the road with no education, no skill and no future.

Guess what? The youngest of those children will be about 26 years old now and the oldest around 35. They still have no skill, no education and no future. They are today our bandits - the same Boko Haram sect the Nigerian media has re-Christined because they succeeded in moving from North East Nigeria to the North West.

As I write this, there is the breaking news that the students and staffs of a school who were kidnapped by bandits a few days ago have been released. The Nigerian govt coughed out N800M to secure their release - the report alleges. Kidnapping is now good business.

In 1970 Chief Obafemi Awolowo wrote an article and said that the educational gap between Northern Nigeria and the South was 150 years. He said his foray into politics was to reduce that gap to 50 years. The same North rejected his candidature at the polls. I suspect that the educational gap is as wide as 300 years now.

Nigeria's problem will not go away in a day
But a government that invests in educating its young people will totally overhaul the fortunes of coming generations. Northern Gov's may consider outlawing this Almajiri thing - I hear it is not even Islamic. It is a silly tradition that should be done away with.

Someone told me yesterday that I was smuggish. I behave as if "I too know". I pleaded guilty. If a man invest in building his mind, he has a right to his confidence. There is a price a people pay for ignorance. Nigeria is paying her own now. It has cost the nation close to a billion Naira just today alone.

Can you imagine what a billion Naira invested wisely twenty years ago in educating northern youths would have done to that region of the country?

I rest my lamentation.

© Deji Yesufu

Source: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2921136971505099&id=100008264737265

Re: Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu by VBCampaign: 6:39am On Feb 20, 2021
Seun, Lalasticlala, Mynd44 consider this for front page
Re: Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu by Furbish(m): 6:52am On Feb 20, 2021
You have stated obvious facts. Like you said, it's a lamentation. As Nigerians home and abroad, everywhere under God's sun, we are sadly burdened with the unfortunate situation that has lingered for so long, but have we paused to or can we just begin to think out of the current box, this quagmire and international opprobrium, and see how individuals can make a difference? Cesspool of corruption, inept political and moral leadership, passive followership and we expect a change? We need constant national orientation and re-orientation.

The almajeri system is a Fulanic design orchestrated to perpetuate the helpless Hausas in perpetual ignorance and eternal servitude to their emirate.

Let's fight the battle against all these militating vices in the mind. Raise our voices. Join politics actively at the grassroots, then we can effect a handsome change.

It's a cycle bro, a wheel. And it's been painfully spinning for too long. We have to break this evil wheel, cos you can't continue to do something the same way and expect different result. Ko le werk!

Thanks for the lamentation, but hey, enough! Let's act while our minds are still strong and bodies still firm.

Join the process of emancipation. It starts with you! And me. And them
Re: Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu by backnbeta(f): 6:59am On Feb 20, 2021
Leaving them uneducated is their leaders' way of keeping them enslaved undecided
Re: Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu by Monogamy: 7:15am On Feb 20, 2021
So muscle pull don catch Aisha Yesufu for throat?
Re: Bandits/boko Haram/almajiri By Deji Yesufu by VBCampaign: 11:16am On Feb 20, 2021
Monogamy:
So muscle pull don catch Aisha Yesufu for throat?

Written by Deji Yesufu, not Aisha Yesufu

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