- Northern governors deserve support for their planned abolition of Almajiri
Northern governors’ decision to abolish Almajiri and beggingis a good piece of news as it seeks to address a problem that has been calling for solution since the country’s independence. Relatedly, the governors’ resolution reinforces President Muhammadu Buhari’s call for reform of Almajiri mode of life in a way that complies with due process. Procedurally, a high-powered discussion of the Almajiri at a forthcoming
summit of 19 governors of the region is in the realm of due process, more so if such decisions are subject to legislation by lawmakers in the region.
Individually, some of the governors have started discussion of reform of the Almajiri phenomenon. For example, the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has announced the need to integrate Almajiri and secular education systems. On his own part, the governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, has emphasised the importance of migrating from a social system that disempowers young people in the prime of their life to one that can prepare them for survival in a competitive society.
We identify with governors who have agreed to reform an outdated system. In the pre-colonial era when leaders did not perceive the need to give literacy to the youth in a language that had little to do with the existing culture of northern states, restricting education of children to Islamic school was understandable. But in a postcolonial ethos in which all states in the northern region are part of a multiethnic polity and a multi-religious society, leaders ought to recognise the need for change. In Nigeria where English is the language of unifying the country and western school culture is open to multidisciplinary learning, there is no reason to put young Muslim children in a system that precludes them from acquiring the basic literacy skills and knowledge that their counterparts in other regions of the federation benefit from.
The disadvantages of the Almajiri practice of restricting the learning of young Nigerians to Qur’anic education and sentencing children from the age of four to support Arabic teachers with proceeds from begging are many. Almajiri children are victims of child abuse. For example, they are denied parental bonding and care at the time that close parent-child relationship matters most for the child’s emotional and psychological development. Almajiri children are denied opportunities for the skills and knowledge they need to profit from modern livelihood. Such children are made to lose self-esteem not only from begging but also from a life with little or no skills to function properly in their adulthood. And such children are pre-disposed by such precarious lifestyle to become recruits for radicalisation and preparation for a life of terrorism.
In relation to other Islamic countries, the advantages that Almajiri victims miss personally and that the country misses are too glaring for northern governors not to be enthusiastic about policy change that can prepare the youths in their region for healthy competition with the rest of the country. While the northern states account for 11 million out of 13 million out-of-school children in the country, thus making the literacy rate in the north to hover around 30%, the picture in other Islamic countries should be of concern to modern governors. For instance, literacy rate in the United Arab Emirate is 93%, having moved from 53.3% in 1975 to 93% in 2015. Saudi Arabia’s rate is 94.84% while Turkey’s is 96.17%. Indonesia’s literacy rate is 97.17% for males and 93.59% for females while Kuwait’s rate is 96.06%. Iran and Iraq have 87.2% and 80.5%, respectively. Even the lowest literacy rates in the Islamic world, Yemen’s 70% and Pakistan’s 58% are far cries from Nigeria’s 59%.
To prevent victims of Almajiri system from culture shock, federal and state governments should cooperate to institutionalise free and compulsory education from age five to 16, with provision of one free meal on school days. The rise in enrolment and retention rate in Kaduna State is a success story for all states to imitate. Such carrot and stick approach will reduce the tension expected from transition from the world of begging to one of learning in the knowledge-driven civilisation of today.
