Eugene Enahoro
Child trafficking for exploitative labour is associated with the southern parts of Nigeria. It’s the way in which most southern “elite” engage nannies or “house-helps”. These children do household chores and are sent to school or learn a trade while their parents receive some financial remuneration. Although, previously supported as a way for poor people’s children to receive an education or learn a trade, stories of their maltreatment have attracted appropriate outrage and compassion leading to positive actions against child trafficking.
All human beings are supposed to be inherently compassionate towards children, which is why it’s difficult to fathom how a system which reduces children to uneducated beggars and street urchins is supported in the North. These products of Almajiri “education” focus on memorising the Holy Koran in Arabic, which doesn’t prepare them in any way for modern society. Without marketable employment skills, the options open to them as adults are to continue begging or “graduate” to various forms of criminality or insurgency. It’s hardly surprising that opponents of Almajiri education see it as simply a means of preparing children for violent jihadist extremism, but wasn’t supposed to be the case.
Almajiri education was originally rooted in rural areas where children were idle between planting and harvest seasons. They would be sent to study with a Mallam and go street begging to find money for sustenance. In modern societies, the integral role of begging in the Almajiri system is an unjustifiable social nuisance. In a multi-religious nation, areas which aren’t predominantly Moslem find it offensive to be pestered by non-indigenous child beggars. It’s not a matter of religion because Moslem clerics say that Islam approves charity but not aggressive begging.
Nationwide street begging by children of northern origin (whether Almajiri or simply beggars) is a national disgrace, an eyesore and a discredit to the North as a whole. The selfish disposition of northern leaders and their responsibility for the persistent retrogression and underdevelopment of the region is evidenced by their failure to end this menace. Meanwhile, the internet is replete with photographs of their own children living in comfort and splendour, being educated overseas and enjoying the benefits of modern technology. The quite silly notion that education is a Christian heritage has led some Northern religious and political leaders to reject enlightenment and modernity.
Quite incredulously, Jigawa State with 800,000 children out of school intends to build 95 mosques rather than 95 schools! It’s quite clear that this pre-Sokoto jihad mindset is outdated because the rest of the Moslem world has moved on. Leading Muslims countries such as the ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam, aggressively pursue education to spread the benefits of modern technology to all their citizens. Saudi Arabia’s literacy level is put at 75%. The end result is that their resources are efficiently manged for the benefit of citizens and they rank 39th out of 189 countries analysed in the world’s Human Development Index (HDI) whereas Nigeria ranks 158th and continues to decline because of retrogression in the north.
Throughout the history of the Moslem world, there has never been a conflict between faith and education, and there is nowhere in the Holy Book of Islam where education and the Islamic faith are deemed incompatible. Indeed, the Moslem world was renowned in history for being a leading light in the advancement and improvement of all aspects of life through education. The truth of the matter is that education isn’t “Western” or “Christian” it’s universal and the brand of Islam as practised in Northern Nigeria, which justifies holding children back from universal education has no parallel in Islamic history. There can be no social and economic development without commensurate human capital development and no modern society can survive with the all too visible ill-effects of the structures, which Northern elites seem intent on retaining.
In June 2019, the National Security Adviser (NSA) said Almajiris pose a risk to national security because the social menace they breed is threatening the very fabric of Nigeria’s nationhood. He asserted quite correctly that many of the North’s problems are rooted in the fact that too many children have been denied their right to get a formal education and consequently end up becoming criminals or drug addicts. Thankfully, the coalition of Northern Governors recently vowed to put an end to all aspects of street begging as a culture in the North. The Nasarawa State Governor signed the “Child Rights Protection Executive Order” aimed at enabling the safety, well-being, good health, security, education and future of children in the State, imposing a 10-year jail term for parents whose children engage in street begging.
The Kaduna State Governor frowned at begging under the guise of acquiring Almajiri education and said existing laws banning street begging and hawking will be fully enforced to address this menace. The Kano State Governor announced that children found street begging would be arrested and that families, which can’t accept free and compulsory primary and secondary education should move out of the state. Regrettably this push to rid the streets of urchins, which didn’t start today, continues to suffer setbacks because some religious and political leaders quite absurdly describe these laudable efforts as a way of keeping people away from Qur’anic or religious studies!
That the Almajiri system is being abused and there are better methods of teaching religious studies is indisputable. Human rights activists claim that because uneducated Almajiris are used for political rallies, elections and census, political leaders don’t have incentive to improve their lot.
This squandering of human potential of northern children will take decades to correct, especially considering that quite alarmingly their numbers continue to increase and the federal government appears unperturbed. It’s no secret that as far as northern politicians are concerned, the value of Almajiris as a ready vote bank that can be tapped during elections in which underaged voting has become common, outweighs the conscionable need for development and progress in society. It’s a simple matter of their preferring personal gain over public good
