MEMO

By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

Reforming Almajiri Education and Tackling Out-of-School Children in Nigeria.

I am not given to making preambles, and it is not going to be any different now, suffice to say that what yours sincerely is going to say might not be to the liking of most, if not all, of you. It might mean a leaner budget for the National Commission For Almajiri And Out-Of-School Children Education, in the near future.

My take on the issue of Almajiri in the northern part of the country, especially the north west, is that not all them are Nigerians and neither are all of them the innocent Almajiri that their innocent cherubic faces suggest. Many of them came from the neighbouring countries purposely to do other things apart from begging. A Professor once argued that ALL the child beggars were citizens of this country, forced into begging because of the ‘hard times’. I do not agree with this view, because the north west is not spared of the hard times.

My view is that a lot of the so called Almajiri who ballooned the population of the out-of-school children in the north were sent to ‘big sister’ Nigeria in order to give her a bad name by their parents in cooperation with their governments. The narrative in most parts of the world is that Nigeria is a country of many beggars, especially her northern part. 

They came to Nigeria in market days in truck loads in glare of Nigerian border officials. Since they were coming to Nigeria, their border officials would not prevent them from crossing over, the drivers of the trucks knew too well what to do, after all, they were coming to Nigeria, where ‘everything has a price’.

If the children are lucky they become useful to the society in future, and if the society is unlucky, such children would become hardened criminals, involved in all manner of criminality, including wanton killings and drug peddling and or use. A Nigerien, who came to Nigeria as an Almajiri some years ago, became a feared killer but was eventually killed by a rival gang to the ‘relief’ of the people.

A smartly dressed boy, who looked anything but a beggar, confidently walked into my house only to meet three friends and me after the door. Two of my friends asked him in unison what he came to do, to which he quickly answered ‘begging’, but he had no begging bowl with him. When that was pointed out to him, he said he was came to beg for it, and I angrily asked him to go somewhere else.

On another occasion, a small girl of about eight to nine years old came to my house at 10.30pm to ‘beg’. When I opened the back door of my parlour and asked her what she was doing at that hour, she said her ‘mother’ sent her to beg and the mother was outside waiting for her. But when I went to look for the ‘mother’, she was nowhere to be found. I concluded that she must have hidden somewhere because she probably heard me talking to the girl.

Still, three Almajiris came to my house, with the smallest of them not up to three years old. The most senior was below 10 years old. They claimed to be siblings from the same parents in Sokoto town, who sent them to Katsina afor Almajirchi. I asked them whether there were no Islamic schools in Sokoto for them to travel up to Katsina. The oldest told me that they were sent to Katsina by their father, who himself was ‘an orphan’ begging in Sokoto along with his wife (the children’s mother). He claimed that their father was an orphan because his father had died too.

An acquaintance told of how he challenged some small children (age wise), who came to his house begging, to take him to their parents who were so callous to send them out to beg at such tender ages. When the so called Almajiris realised he was serious about his desire to see their parents, they confessed to coming from a neighbouring country from where their biological parents gave them the fake address on a non existent road, and told them to tell that so to whoever inquired about where they came from.

In giving their regular advisory about the banditry ravaging the area, some security organisations do  warn people to always be wary of the so called child beggars, as some of them are often informers and scouts of the bandits or just thieves, who would cart away (steal) anything of value if not watched properly. Some of them ‘beg’ at homes during prayer times, when most of the able bodied men have gone to the mosque to join the congregation prayer. It shows that such ‘beggars’ have other things in mind if the opportunity presents itself to them.

There are also the confessions of many apprehended minor Almajiris who told security officials of their dual role of almajirchi and information gatherers for the bandits. They were always paid stipends for the assignment.

Moving forward, it is advisable to seep the Nigerian children from the foreigners, and educate them as necessary, where their cases are found to be genuine. Those found to be lying about the state of their parents’s penury which supposedly forced them into ‘begging’, should be handled accordingly. It is also advisable, if possible, to take back the foreign ‘beggars’ to wherever they came from. Our (apparently porous) borders should be strictly monitored to ensure that only genuine travellers get smooth access into the country. 

A foreign white woman visiting Nigeria for the first time, narrated her experience at one of our airports. She claimed to have passed through 11 (eleven) checkpoints, all of which demanded ‘something’ from her. She advised the Nigerian government to do something about it, as according to her, such practices, which do not take place in more serious countries, were capable of discouraging genuine tourism.

This person has written many articles on ‘begging’ so much that it appears to be an obsession with him.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.