Nasarawa State Governor and Chairman of the North Central Governors Forum, Abdullahi Sule, has emphasised that the people of the region must take decisive action to address the persistent issues related to the almajiri system.
Governor Sule made this statement while inaugurating a regional conference on population dynamics, security, climate change, out-of-school children, almajiri, and vulnerable children in Nigeria. The event, organized by the National Population Commission, was hosted by the Nasarawa State Government on Tuesday in Lafia.
The governor pointed out that the North can no longer hold the country hostage over the almajiri problem, asserting that only the region can resolve the challenges associated with this system.
He warned that if the region does not take steps to address the almajiri issue, the protests against bad governance, which have recently occurred across the country, will seem trivial compared to the potential crisis that could arise from an unresolved almajiri system.
“The almajiri problem is indeed a huge problem for us. I think, just as I told my colleagues in Kaduna during our last meeting of the Northern governors, I said we should stop complaining. It is time for us to take the bull by the horns and see how we can resolve the problem by ourselves.
“We should no longer expect anybody to come and solve the problem of the almajiri system. We must be the ones to solve this problem if we are serious about solving the problem of the almajiri system,” he said.
The Governor pointed out that all previous efforts to address the problems of the almajiri have failed because the root cause of the problem is yet to be addressed.
He emphasized that people must be taught to take responsibility of their children rather than sending them out to beg on the streets in the name of acquiring Islamic education.
“We have to find a way to teach people that it is a sin in Islam to continue to produce children you could not take care of. Until we take care of that, we cannot solve the problem. Just like it is a sin to continue to marry wives you cannot take care of, it is also a sin to continue producing children that you cannot take care of,” he stated.
Governor Sule insisted that as long as parents continue to send their children and wards to traditional almajiri schools then the problem would persist.
“These are the challenges we have at hand. We must be able to take it seriously and teach our people directly into their sense to know that they must understand that this is the challenge that we have in Nigeria today.
“Why is it that it is only here? I just got back from Saudi Arabia. I didn’t see too many almajiri in Makkah, Madina, in Jedda or anywhere. They are an Islamic nation. Yes. You mentioned that in Pakistan they have out-of-school children but their own situation is even completely different. Why should Northern Nigeria continue to hold the entire nation at ransom when we know that it is our own problem and we have to go out there and find a way to solve it,” he said.
While commending the National Commission for Almajiri and Out of School Children for initiating the process of taking the almajiri off the streets by adopting a system that would see the beneficiaries attend universities in Madina, Niger and Malaysia, he said that would not be sufficient to fully tackle the menace.
Recounting his experience tackling the almajiri problem back in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, with his administration transporting almajiris from the streets across the state, back to their states of origin, Governor Sule lamented that four times the number returned to Lafia afterward.
“What human being on earth would take his 4 or 5-year-old kid and take him and drop the child somewhere where you are not interested in what the child eats, where he sleeps, what he wears and you said this is Islam. There is no way this is Islam. Suratul Bakhara is very clear on this,” he added.
He warned further that the North must wake up and solve the almajiri problem since nobody would do that for the region.
He announced plans by his administration to set up three special schools in Lafia, Akwanga, and Keffi specifically to rehabilitate the almajiri but called on his colleagues from the North to ensure that they stop producing more almajiri into society.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Hon. Nasir Isa Kwarra, said the conference, supported by the Nasarawa State Government, is a critical step towards fulfilling one of the commission’s key responsibilities, research, and dissemination of evidence-based data for policy formulation and development.
Kwarra revealed that the inaugural regional conference brought together executive governors, traditional and religious leaders, development partners, experts from academia, professionals, and other stakeholders across the region and beyond to discuss the complex and critical challenges facing the North Central zone and Nigeria at large.
“The overall objective of the conference is to provide a forum for articulating, discussing and proffering actionable solutions to the multidimensional socioeconomic and environmental challenges of the region,” he said.
(The Nation)
