When Kano sent almajiris home

On April 20, 2020, the Kano State government announced its intention to repatriate non-indigenous Almajiri pupils to their respective states of origins. A survey conducted by the government indicated that there are total of 251, 883 Almajiri pupils within the eight metropolitan local government areas of the state alone. According to the survey, a total […]

On April 20, 2020, the Kano State government announced its intention to repatriate non-indigenous Almajiri pupils to their respective states of origins. A survey conducted by the government indicated that there are total of 251, 883 Almajiri pupils within the eight metropolitan local government areas of the state alone.

According to the survey, a total of 178,472 of the 215,883 Almajiri are non-indigenes, while the remaining 79,411 are indigenes of the state. The state government on Tuesday April 21, 2020 began the deportation of 1,478 Almajiri to their states of origin as first batch of the exercise.

So far, 1,095 Almajiri have been deported to Katsina and Jigawa states. While the 432 Almajiri from Katsina were handed over to the Secretary to the Government of Katsina State, Alhaji Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa, on April 21, 2020 at Gidan-Mutum Daya, a Kano/Katsina border town, the 663 others from Jigawa State were received in Dutse, the state capital by the Commissioners of Education, Alhaji Lawan Yunusa Danzomo and his health counterpart, Dr Abba Umar Zakari, on Wednesday.

Other states that are expected to receive theirs include Yobe with 63 pupils, Kaduna 198, Bauchi 101, Zamfara 01, Gombe 09, Nasarawa 10 and Niger Republic 01. According to the chairman of the 33-man Kano State Committee on evacuation of Almajiri, Alhaji Murtala Sule Garo, these Almajiri were those whose Malams willingly decided to deport to their respective states of origin.

He said the committee is still dialoguing with Qur’anic teachers on the modalities for deportation of the Almajiri to their respective states, noting that according to the survey conducted in the eight metropolitan local government areas of the state, there were 33,156 Almajiri in Kano municipal pencilled down for evacuation. In Nassarawa there are 28,156, Kumbotso 22,841, Gwale 31,323, Dala 27,261, Ungoggo 32,442 and Fagge 34,329 Almajiri.

Garo, who doubles as commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, explained that these pupils were evacuated to their respective states of origins with the consent of their governors, as according to him “the pupils are being received by their governments after completing all the necessary arrangements between the two governments.”

On why government commenced the exercise at the spike of cases of COVID-19, the commissioner said the exercise was part of plans to curtail the spread of the virus in Kano State, noting that “everybody knows the nature of our Qur’anic schools and how vulnerable its pupils are when it comes to the issue of any outbreak of disease. So, to avoid rapid spread of the disease in the state, especially among the Almajiri, government decided to evacuate them to minimize the spread the disease in our communities.

“People should also understand that we are not evacuating them blindly. We are not unmindful of the spread of disease. Therefore, all the Almajiri that are set for evacuation, we always ensure that their body temperature is measured and while handling over to their government, their temperature is measured again. And anybody found to be with high body temperature will be separated from his colleagues for further examination just to ensure that nobody among them is infected with the virus.

“For instance, when we decided to take those from Katsina to Kano/Katsina border, the two state governments agreed that we should measure the body temperature of the pupils right from Kano and those with high temperature should be taken in a separate car from those with normal temperature. After, we have measured their temperature, we discovered that three pupils had high temperature between 42 and 43.

“And to be honest with you, what led to that was that these three Almajiri had decided on their own to leave Kano for Katsina. In fact, they had started their journey by the time we arrived at their Tsangaya. It was after their Malams handed over the pupils to us that we realized that three were missing and when we inquired, he said they had left for Katsina. We quickly mobilized our people who traced them around Janguza Army barracks and returned them to the school. So, when we measured their body temperature, it was 42, 43 and 43 respectively.

“But after we separated them, gave them water and allowed them to rest for sometime, we took their temperature again, and it was within the normal range of 36 and 38 respectively and by the time we arrived at the border, the Katsina SGS with his medical team also measured the body temperature of the 432 pupils before they were taken to Katsina town.

“So, in a nut shell, we put all necessary measures in place to ensure that we did not take any infected person among the Almajiri to his state of origin. If we are doing the evacuation to protect the lives of our people here in Kano by curtailing the spread of the disease, why should we then encourage its spread to other state? People should understand that all we are doing is to protect human life irrespective of where you come from.

The commissioner added that the most important aspect of the evacuation exercise was that each Almajiri was accompanied by his data which entails his background regarding his full name, name of village/town, his home address, his father’s occupation and for some of them, phone numbers of their fathers. He said they were handed over to their respective states’ government with such data.

For the 79,411 indigenous Almajiri, Daily Trust gathered that the Kano State government has concluded plans to incorporate them into its Free and Compulsory Basic Education Programme by enrolling them into the already established primary boarding schools in the state.

The state’s Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Muhammad Sanusi Sa’idu Kiru, who confirmed this, explained that the state had 12 existing boarding primary schools and three additional schools are being constructed in each of the three senatorial districts, saying government had concluded plans to improve the lives of these pupils.

“The three new boarding primary schools are located in Bunkure town in Bunkure LGA, Kanwa village in Madobi LGA and Kiyawa in Bagwai LGA. They will continue with their qur’anic education and at the same time learning western education and crafts. We will no longer allow these pupils to grow up without having anything that they can rely on as a source of their livelihood.

“We are implementing a total integration of Qur’anic system of education in Kano. For the Qur’anic teachers, we are into discussion with them on how to incorporate them into the civil service carder as permanent and pensionable workers. Our plan is to employ them and send them to those boarding primary schools to teach religious subjects,” he said.

The commissioner assured that government has resolved that henceforth, nobody would be allowed to operate qur’anic schools in the state without proper arrangements, noting that government would obtain details of all qur’anic schools operating in the state and anybody found operating such schools without permission would face the wrath of the law.

“There must be guidelines for operating such schools in the state and anybody who wants to operate must adhere to the guidelines. We will never allow our people to be operating the system blindly anymore. We will come up with rules and regulations for such operation in the state. The government, parents, Alaramma and other stakeholders must come together to salvage the situation,” he concluded.