Re: Almajirci: Some home truths (II)

If the federal government is serious and sincere about ending this enslavement of young children while allowing parents dodge their primary responsibilities, it should accept the guides/solutions offered by the columnist.In addition, childbirth is another factor that aids parents to send away their kids into almajirci. If we really want to come to the aid […]

If the federal government is serious and sincere about ending this enslavement of young children while allowing parents dodge their primary responsibilities, it should accept the guides/solutions offered by the columnist.
In addition, childbirth is another factor that aids parents to send away their kids into almajirci. If we really want to come to the aid of these hapless children, we must control childbirth and how our marriages are contracted. Hausa-Fulani com-munity records the highest rate of divorce in Nigeria and probably in Africa, and this is because of its low value especially here in the North-Eastern part of the country.
Men take brides for granted and at a low cost, a little above N100,000. That’s why many husbands can divorce a woman within weeks or months of marriage without any cogent reason and without consulting parents/guardians and, in most cases, the children that result from these failed marriages are the almajirai we’re talking about tackling.
So ab initio, an organ should be assigned to regulate the conduct of marriages. For example, before a husband divorces a wife, he must consult the council/guardian that conducted the marriage to get its advice before the marriage can be considered dissolved. Any erring husband must be punished accordingly not to be given another bride until after some years.  Any husband found wanting negligence of his duties at home must not be allowed to marry a second wife.
The same rule should apply to low-income earners.  Also a jobless man should not be given a wife. The fatalistic proviso that Allah would provide should be discountenanced.  If we control or change our attitudes in our marriages – or if we’re forced to – then followed by Sanusi Abubakar’s guides,  almajirci would regain it lost glory and much more benefit the malam, almajiri and the society at large.
Contrarily, people continue to misinterpret Prophet Muhammad (saw) hadith that says ‘marry, and give birth, I’ll be proud of your numbers”, but every sensible man knows full well that he’ll not be proud of thugs, militants, gangsters, morally corrupt minds but otherwise; and all the perpetrators of these evil vices are in most cases the displaced, hapless urchins- almajirai that are transformed into these hoodlums that become dangerous to themselves and the society they live in because they lack or know no parental-love, care and upbringing.
That’s why they proudly carry out their nefarious vices with ease. For our own good, all hands in the North must be on deck to checkmate this distorted system of almajirci. As the saying goes “If Muhammad won’t come to the mountains, then mountains must come to Muhammad.”

Abubakar Sadisu, <[email protected]>;