Rights and respect versus bans and blame: What serves Nigeria’s almajirai?

After a decade in the legislative pipeline, a potential ‘almajiri ban’ is back on the table. Last week, a bill aiming to revise the 2003 ‘Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Act’ passed its second reading in the Senate. If the legislative proposal succeeds, the almajirai would soon fall under national anti-trafficking legislation. Meanwhile, Senate President David […]

After a decade in the legislative pipeline, a potential ‘almajiri ban’ is back on the table. Last week, a bill aiming to revise the 2003 ‘Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Act’ passed its second reading in the Senate. If the legislative proposal succeeds, the almajirai would soon fall under national anti-trafficking legislation. Meanwhile, Senate President David Mark urged northern governors to also issue legislation against the almajiri system at the state level. Kano’s Rabiu Kwankwaso speaks of an imminent ban on begging in his state. While the details of the proposed legislation remain in the dark, the ‘target group’ is well known: the almajirai are boys and young men who are enrolled as full-time students in traditional Qur’anic schools in northern Nigeria. Many almajirai are from poor rural households and beg for food and alms while living with a Qur’anic teacher in town.
Proponents of punitive action towards the almajiri system refer to the good of society to justify their position. They speak of the ‘menace’ the almajiri system purportedly poses to national security and describe almajiri schools as ‘a breeding ground’ for ‘miscreants’. Many people also talk of ‘parental negligence’. We read of ‘backward’ parents who purportedly fail to appreciate the benefits of modern education, and who betray the true tenets of Islam. A ban appears a sensible choice to those who believe almajirai exist because culture has gone astray.
But let us pause to consider an alternative scenario: In this scenario, children leave to live as almajirai because the circumstances at their homes make it difficult for them to stay let alone to acquire a worthwhile education. Some may have divorced parents, with mothers who re-married elsewhere and fathers who feel uncomfortable leaving their sons under the care of stepmothers. Some may be orphaned. Some almajirai’s parents may struggle to muster the costs of presumably ‘free’ basic education. Others may depend on their sons’ help during the farming season, and modern schools often fail to accommodate students who are absent for longer periods of time. Again others may decide that secular schools, where students play langa while their – often poorly educated – teachers fail to show up, are not a good use of their children’s time. For all these situations, banning the almajiri system provides no redress.
What then motivates those calling for a ban? If it is embarrassment about the image of northern cities, admittedly, a ban might do the job. Nigeria could follow the example of countries like Brazil in the 1970s and 80s, where a dictatorial government purged the cities of street children, who were forcibly deported to remote rural areas and left to struggle on their own for survival. For sure, the streets looked the tidier for it. If one’s concern is not with image, but with the wellbeing of the young people enrolled as almajirai, a ban is not the way to go.
What would, for instance, a ban on begging achieve? Many believe begging makes almajirai lazy. Yet, all the almajirai I got to know during my research prefer work to begging. Employment, say as household help, promises some degree of food security, whereas begging makes one vulnerable to the caprices of potential donors. The weather is a further source of anxiety. During the wet season, when people lock their doors against the rain, finding food is very laborious, the almajirai say. They also invoke respect as a major reason to prefer work over begging. Almost all almajirai have already been insulted and chased away when begging. Some even tell of physical assaults. There is little reason to assume that almajirai would continue begging if they had viable alternatives. If the government were to give food to their malamai, they could stop begging, they say.
Even now, without having been declared outlaws, the almajirai suffer from stigma. They complain of being frequently denied even a minimum of respect as human beings. Twelve-year-old Ismail, who lives as almajiri in Kano’s Old City, for instance says that “to some, a dog is better than an almajiri. They think he is an animal, that a donkey is even better than an almajiri”. Criminalisation would likely rob the almajirai of the little esteem people still have for them.
But welfare concerns aside: many people advocate banning the almajiri system on the grounds of security concerns. Would a ban make northern Nigeria a safer place? Certainly, it would do little to win the hearts and minds of the supporters and stakeholders of the system. Most probably, it would antagonise poor communities whose room for manoeuvre is already limited. Also, to conceive of the almajiri system itself, irrespective of its social context, as the source of the problem cuts a long story very short. Some 9.5 million boys and girls all over Nigeria attend Qur’anic schools, either in addition to attendance in a secular school, or as their only educational experience. Are we to believe all of them become violent militants? To assume that violence results mechanically from some inherent feature of traditional Qur’anic education aborts prematurely the search for more meaningful explanations of violent behaviour.
Often the link between almajirai and violence is made with reference to their putative refusal to acquire modern skills and knowledge. But contrary to received wisdom, many almajirai are anything but hostile to modern education. Many attend secular or Islamiyya school for a number of years. Many have to drop out due to financial hardship. What is more, the almajirai are hardly alone in lacking skills to safeguard their economic futures. Educational disadvantage extends far beyond them, as the low secular school enrolment rates for girls in northern Nigeria, or the poor achievements of even those children who do attend secular school, attest. According to the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey, 35% of school-aged girls attend primary school in the North West as compared to 47% of boys. In contrast, in the South East 80% of both girls and boys attend. In Sokoto State, 91% of children aged 5-16 years cannot read a simple sentence in their preferred language at all; in Lagos State on the other hand, 92% of children can either read the entire sentence or at least parts of it.
What is problematic about blanket accusations are the logics of action following from them. People who conceive of the almajirai as animals will treat them accordingly. People who conceive of almajiri enrolment as merely a wilful but wrong choice let fall by the wayside the role that structural inequalities and poverty play in determining access to education in northern Nigeria. It is easy to ban the almajirai. But it will enhance neither their wellbeing nor solve the security threats in the north.
If politicians genuinely want to help, there are ways to do so. Rural poverty needs to be addressed, and the quality of modern education must improve, especially in rural areas. Feeding programmes and skills training, e.g. on the almajirai’s ‘weekend days’ Thursday and Friday, would make a difference. Last but not least, the almajirai must be treated as human beings worthy of respect. This involves listening to their concerns.