This roaming army will kill us someday!

One of the most frustrating things about public discourse in Nigeria is the tendency of some people to pigeonhole perspectives on the basis of ethnicity and religion. Thus, no matter how well-intentioned one’s comments are, no matter how workable the proffered solutions, those who profit from the status quo are bound to deride the commentator […]

One of the most frustrating things about public discourse in Nigeria is the tendency of some people to pigeonhole perspectives on the basis of ethnicity and religion.

Thus, no matter how well-intentioned one’s comments are, no matter how workable the proffered solutions, those who profit from the status quo are bound to deride the commentator and treat his suggestions with utmost contempt.

In the course of my journalism career, I have been bewildered by the most blighting scar on the nose of northern Nigeria.

They call it the almajiri system; I call it irresponsible parenting.

Although the practice of releasing children (some as young as six years) to Koranic teachers for Islamic learning is an old one, the Nigerian version where the children are used as beggars under the wings of the mallams is peculiarly scandalous.

All over the major cities of the North, these innocent children are everywhere — weather-beaten, flea-ridden, gaunt, desperate looking bags of bones. Some feed from garbage bins, others haunt restaurants for leftovers.

They spend daytime on the streets and nighttime wherever dusk meets them.

Many have lost their innocence because of exposure to criminal and immoral tendencies.

When you ask, as I have done many times, where the parents of the children are, you are told that the parents may be hundreds of kilometres away.

Some parents do not even know where their children are because they’ve stopped monitoring the itinerary of the mallams who, sometimes, are nomadic.

Now, our politicians, having used the street urchins as political thugs and cannon fodder, slept on the almajiri problem until COVID-19 nudged them to a rude awakening.

As usual with us, a fire brigade solution seems to be the preferred option: each state should deport non-indigenes among the urchins to their home states.

UNICEF estimates that there are about 10.5 million children aged 5-14 years out of school in the northern states of Nigeria.

Only 61 percent of 6-11 year-olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6 percent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education.

UBEC estimates that Nigeria as a whole has about 13.2 million out-of-school children.

It doesn’t take much imagination to visualise the possible consequences of proliferating the number of almajiri through uncontrolled, unplanned breeding.

In this era of terrorism, Boko Haram must be delighted to have such a ready army of discontents to recruit from; kidnappers and bandits and highway robbers too!

Last February, Hon Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of the House of Representatives warned that Nigeria was facing the worst security challenges since the civil war.

“We must urgently begin to depopulate the pool from which youngsters are recruited into violence”, he admonished, adding that, “if we cannot serve the poor, the destitute and those who are hurting in our midst but claim to be serving God whom we have never seen, we are nothing but pathetic liars….” The legislator called for urgent action: “We are running out of time. It is crystal clear that the North cannot withstand the kind of contradictions that exist now. The North is on fire ignited by us either by our actions or by what we permit or allow.”

Interestingly, the traditional institution has been more progressive on this issue than many ‘modern’ politicians whose duty it is to lift the children out of the depths of hopelessness.

The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, has also been making a plea for the integration of almajiris with the rest of civilised society.

The former Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was one of the most strident campaigners for the rights of out-of-school children.

Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, has given an indication that government was also concerned about the problem during a PTF COVID-19 briefing. “If we do not deal with the issues relating to the almajiris, we are building an army that would overwhelm us as a people and as a nation in the future,” he declared.

Meaning: When an army of uneducated youths with no hope for the future are let loose, they will do maximum damage because they have nothing to lose.

How did Prof. Sam Aluko describe our iniquitous situation again?

“The poor cannot sleep, because they are hungry, and the rich cannot sleep because the poor are awake and hungry.” If we do nothing, this roaming army will be the death of us someday.

Northern governors have thankfully (finally!) taken up the gauntlet with their recent decision to clear their streets of almajiris who are indigenous to their states and the transfer of others to their home states. While commending this move, even though ill-advised at a time of COVID-19 pandemic scourge, I beg the governors not to simply dump their almajiris in IDP camps away from public scrutiny.

Send them to school. Teach them some trade to make them useful to themselves and society. It is demeaning and self-insulting when your major export to other parts of the country and beyond is unskilled labour.

There is nothing pathologically wrong with the almajiri kids. If exposed to the same environment and opportunities of children elsewhere, they will excel and do the country proud instead of being the gangrenous social sore that they are. Henceforth, let the sight of the bare-footed, eczematous, half-naked five-year-old boy with mucus-dripping nose, a colony of flies in tow and a begging bowl in hand be a thing of the past.

Every child ought to count.