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* May invite monarch

The Kano State House of Assembly has launched a fresh probe against the Emir of Kano, Malam Muhammadu Sanusi ll, over alleged violation of ‘‘some Hausa norms, culture and traditions’’. At yesterday’s plenary, the Chairman, House Committee on Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Zubairu Hamza Massu, said he received two petitions against the emir on March 2, 2020, for onward transmission to the House.

Presenting the petitions to the House, Massu said one of them was from the Kano State Society for Promotion of Education and Culture, and signed by Muhammad Bello Abdullahi, and the other was from an individual named;Muhammad Mukhtar Ja’en Yamma. Massu added that the petitioners, who backed their petitions with video clips contained in flash drive, requested the House to investigate the emir’s actions which they alleged contradict the Hausa norms, values, culture and sometimes religion.

Shortly after he laid the petition before the House, the Speaker, Alhaji Abdulazeez Garba Gafasa sought the opinion of other members over the transmission of the report to the House Committee on Public Complaints and Petitions and the period within which the committee should finish its work and report back. The assembly unanimously agreed that the report should be transmitted to the committee but offered two options on the duration within which the committee should finish its assignment.

Two members; Tasi’u Ibrahim Zabainawa and Tasi’u Abdullahi suggested that the committee should be given one week to finish its assignment while Sani Muhammad from Bunkure Local Government suggested that only four days be given to the committee to handle the work. Finally, the House directed the committee to finish its assignment within one week and report back.

The Deputy Speaker, Alhaji Hamza Ibrahim Ci-Dari; Majority Leader, Alhaji Kabiru Hassan Dashi and Chief Whip, Alhaji Tasi’u Ibrahim Zabainawa, were incorporated into the committee, thereby making the membership, eight. Shortly after committing the report to the committee, a member from Dala Local Government, Alhaji Lawal Hassan Chediyar Yan-Gurasa, raised an objection, insisting that the House ought to have established the authenticity of the petitions before transmitting same to the committee.

He further stated that the House must know the petitioners and those who signed it before accepting it, noting that “one way of establishing this is by summoning the petitioners to appear before the House. Again, the petition should be read during the session before transmitting it to the committee. “We are lawmakers, it is uncalled-for, for the House to just accept the petitions without verifying its authenticity’’, he said.

Reacting to this position, the Speaker said Section 3(b) of the House Rules has empowered the House Committee on Public Complaints and Petitions to study and make necessary findings regarding petitions. Also reacting, Massu said Chediyar Yan-Gurasa misunderstood the House Rules, noting that such petitions always come to the House either through the executive or members.

He said: “Whenever a member of the public wants to present a petition or lodge a complaint before the House, that person must channel his petition or complaint either through the executive or any of the members. “What the petitioners want from the House, is to call the emir to order, because as a public figure and emir for that matter, the monarch should not have sent his daughter to represent him at a public event.

“I can vividly recall that this is one of the allegations raised by the petitioners. And the petitioners want the emir to restrain himself from engaging in any action that is capable of tarnishing our norms, values and culture.

The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay, has said the Whistleblowing policy of the Federal Government has led to the recovery of N594.09bn in less than three years since it was introduced. He spoke on Wednesday in Abuja at a two-day roundtable organised by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), PACAC and the MacArthur Foundation with the theme: “Entrenching Whistleblowing in Regulatory and Revenue-Generating Agencies”.

He also said the policy recorded 791 cases of infractions from ‘actionable tips’ in the same period. He said the policy has been very successful not only in terms of assets recovered but also by revelation of magnitude of various scams used by fraudulent Nigerians in bleeding the country’s purse.

“As at November 2019, less than three years after the introduction of the policy, the Federal Government had recovered N594.09bn from the implementation of the policy,” Sagay said. According to him, the success of the policy had led to calls from Nigerians abroad that the Federal Government should export the initiative to known countries where looted funds are usually laundered.

Sagay said, “Some Nigerians living abroad, particularly in the USA, have suggested that the whistle blower’s policy should be operated abroad in order to expose Nigerians who loot our funds, and then launder them abroad by buying expensive properties in the name of their relatives living or studying abroad. “According to those pushing this proposal, some former governors transferred public funds abroad and used them to purchase expensive and luxurious properties in the names of their relations residing in the foreign country concerned.

“The idea is that our government should appropriately tip-off contact with the FBI in the USA to investigate such relations regarding their source of funds for the properties in their names.” Speaking earlier, the Coordinator, AFRICMIL, Dr. Chido Onumah, said the centre as part of its good governance initiative, in early 2017, launched the Corruption Anonymous (CORA) project with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

He said the project is aimed at creating awareness about whistleblowing and making Nigerians see the need to adopt whistleblowing as a tool for reducing corruption and other forms of malfeasance in the country, build public confidence in the whistleblowing policy of the federal government and advocate for the protection of whistle-blowers.

“Despite its challenges, mainly bordering on lack of proper legal and institutional framework, the whistleblowing policy has achieved considerable success, manifested in the recovery of huge amounts of looted public funds in local and foreign currencies, as well as other mouth-watering state assets. “Although the whistleblowing mechanism exists in some government agencies, many others do not have such framework in place. Even for those who do, lack of coordination means limited efficacy and impact of the provisions.

In some cases, also, the policy is not more than the paper on which it is written, devoid of the needed impetus,” Onumah said. Also, the Deputy Director, MacArthur Foundation, Dr. Dayo Olaide, said Nigeria is not winning the anti-corruption war because the needed and expected actions do not come from the government.

At a dumpsite located along Court Road, Gyadi-Gyadi, Daily Trust reporter caught up with 12-year-old Auwal Mohammed. Auwal, an almajiri, says “Since the state government does not want to see us on the streets, this is the only option available to us. We glean through this refuse dump for anything that could be of use to us either as food or clothing.

At the end of the day, some of us get clothing, foot wears and food from here.” He said since the ban on street begging by the Kano State government, majority of them especially those below the age of 10 have been facing serious difficulty in feeding since they are not old enough to do menial jobs to get money for self-sustenance. Auwal makes about N200 daily from iron and plastic materials he picks from the refuse dump.

Similarly, Usman Adamu, a resident of Mahuta in Katsina State, said since he came to Kano about two years ago, his major means of livelihood has been alms from well-spirited individuals. Following the ban on street begging, Usman says he is forced to resort to scavenging for survival. He makes at least N150 from the refuse dump every day.

The Kano State governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, on Tuesday made a pronouncement banning street begging in the state, saying any father whose child was caught begging in the state would face the wrath of the law, as government would not hesitate in prosecuting any erring parent. However, shedding light on the statement, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Abba Anwar, said the general public should understand between policy statement and implementation of a policy, noting that “What happened at the Sani Abacha Indoor Stadium is nothing but a policy pronouncement.”

Anwar explained that the state governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, only made a policy statement regarding the ban on street begging, noting that programmes that would make smooth implementation of the policy were underway. The issue of Almajiri Street begging has over the decades been a source of concern to successive governments in Kano State. Moreover, various attempts to address the issue have been adopted by different governments before the recent ban. It would be recalled that a concept of Islamiyya Qur’anic and Tsangaya Education (IQTE) was introduced.

It was a system where conventional education is integrated into the Islamiyya and Quránic school system with feeding support all in an attempt to reduce the Almajiri roaming the streets of Kano. In 2016, the Kano State government made provision of N150m in the 2016 Budget to be expended in IQTE as part of the state’s commitment to the development of education in the state and as a measure to incorporate the Almajiri in 16 local governments of the state operating the IQTE schools.

According to the 2010 Ministerial Committee’s report on Madrasah, the Almajiri constitute the largest group of out-of-school children in Nigeria. And in order to reduce inequality and provide access to qualitative education to these segregated classes of children, the Federal Government set up a Committee on Implementation of Almajiri Education Programme and charged it with the responsibility of ensuring that these Almajirai are integrated into the Universal Basic Education Programme.

This is without prejudice to their acquiring a sound mastery of Qur’anic Knowledge. While some residents have commended the governor for taking the bold decision to tackle the ugly trend of street begging in the state, others not only criticized the move, but described it as political, saying successive government have also made similar pronouncement but failed at implementation.

However, following the mixed reaction expressed by different sectors in the state, Special Adviser to the Kano State Governor on Child Welfare and Women Mobilization, Hajiya Fatima Abdullahi Dala, issued a statement stating that the decision of the Kano State government was in good faith, without any prejudice or sentiment against any group of people, or class of individuals but in line with the commitment and unrelenting passion of the Kano State governor to uplift, safeguard and secure the lives and promote the welfare of the children in the state.

According to Malam Isa Usaini, an operator of Almajiri school in Hotoro area of Nassarawa Local Government Area, his school has about 26 students and none of these students was brought to the school with any food item. Some of the students came to the school with only one or two pairs of clothings. He further revealed that his students still go out to beg for food as he and the children have no alternative. According to him, “Now that they have banned begging, I will allow them to go back to their parents.

To be honest with you, I feel relieved and free to send them back to their parents with the strong reason that government has banned begging.” However, one of his students, 9-year-old Umar Abdu Gofaru, told Daily Trust Saturday that he doesn’t want to return to his parents because life here is far better that life at his home. Another teacher of an Almajiri school, Malam Haruna Ali, said no one can stop Almajiri from begging. He has about 41 students and says he will not return any of them, as stopping them from begging is like stopping them from studying about their religion.

On his part, the chairman of the Kano State chapter of the Council of Ulama, Sheikh Ibrahim Khaleel, viewed the decision of the Kano government on street begging as nothing but mere pronouncement. Addressing a press conference, Sheikh Khaleel lamented that government was not serious about the issue of street begging, noting that “this is not a proper way of handling this issue because right steps have not been taken on the issue.

Historical evidences on the ban of street begging are there to testify that the governor is just not serious about this issue. “If we view the history of banning street begging since the time of Sir Ahmadu Bello, efforts to ban street begging were opposed by the Ulama who saw it as a way of keeping people away from Quranic or religious studies because the issue was at that time politicised.”

The scholar further recalled that during Governor Audu Bako’s administration, Alhaji Muhammadu Ibrahim, father of former Education minister Prof Ruqayyah, initiated good plans to curtail street begging, but it was also politicised.” Subsequently, the military administration of Ndatsu Umaru had established a committee of prominent Islamic scholars made up of Sheikh Isah Waziri, Ibrahim Umar Kabo, Rabi Wali, among others, with a view to tackle the issue of street begging in the state.

“As the committee resumed work, Ndatsu was transferred from Kano State and the move died naturally. After the return of democracy, many governments have made efforts to address this problem but all were in vain due to some reasons. Sheikh Ibrahim insisted that the right steps to ensure effective ban on street begging in the state have not been taken by the government, hence the failure.

“The right steps to follow include firstly, the real Quranic scholars who are really manning Tsangaya and Qur’anic schools in the state have to be identified. Thi is because there are street beggers who are really Quranic students, and there are those sent by their parents from the rural areas to come and beg in the urban areas. There are also physically challenged persons who engage in street begging because of their deformity. So, all these have to be identified first and categorized.”

French Ambassador to Nigeria Jerome Pasquier yesterday described efforts to find sustainable solutions to insecurity in Nigeria, particularly in the northwest, as inadequate. He spoke in Abuja yesterday at a workshop on “Addressing Rural Insecurity and Violence in North-western Nigeria” organised by the Pastoral Reserve, the Search for Common Ground, the Nextier SPD and the French Embassy.

Pasquier, represented by the Head of Cooperation, Embassy of France in Nigeria, Ellien Helios, urged Nigerian authorities and stakeholders to step up actions and devise new approaches. “There are many factors affecting the northwest region for years now, there are also many actors, but I don’t think there is enough being done by the actors to have a better understanding of the situation and try to find some appropriate solutions to the insecurity and the subsequent sufferings.

“We’ve a unique opportunity to work and listen to people gathering the best expertise on these issues. So, let’s seize this opportunity as a starting point to get humble, but to also develop a better understanding of the issues , strategize response, develop a coordinative approach and increase action,” he said. Senior Research and Policy Lead, Nextier SPD, Ndubuisi Nwokolo, said the insecurity bedevilling the northern Nigeria should not be seen as a northern problem only, warning that the entire nation could bear the consequences of collective negligence.

According to him, the entire country is at risk of food insecurity due to the unresolved insurgency in the north. He said dialogue and a regional approach were needed to permanently address the problem.