By Kamal Ololade Ahmed
*The Almajiri repatriated to Kaduna*
Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai announced today, Monday, May 24, 2020, his pleasure to see the Almajiri children repatriated to the state now free of COVID-19.
“I am pleased to see our Almajiri children the batch of 2018 from Kano, Nassarawa, Plateau & Gombe States looking well and free of Covid 19. With the support of @UNICEF_ Nigeria, AMA Foundation, other NGOs & philanthropists, they are being restored full human rights as children, dignity & hope!” he wrote on his Facebook page.
The governor had earlier declared the Almajiri system an anachronism that must be brought to an end.
“We’ve been looking for ways and means to end this system because it has not worked for the children. It has not worked for northern Nigeria. So, it has to end and this is the time,” said the governor.
The plight of the Almajiri children in northern Nigeria was once again raised to the threshold of public concern amidst the world fight against Covid 19.
The repatriation of these children from different Northern States to their states of origin, also in the north, attracted commentaries from different quarters.
In a statement credited to the governor of Kano State, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, he said:“We agreed at the Northern Governors Forum that all almajiris should be moved to their states of origin. All Almajiris that are not from Kano State are going to their respective State of origin.”
A large number of these children who were moved from different Northern tested positive to Covid 19 after they were quarantined in their states of origin, causing some form of trepidation. Many commentators have condemned this state organized mass movement of minors as violation of the human rights of these vulnerable children.
The Almajiri system which was originally meant to be a system where children are sent by their parents to live with and study Qur’anic education with a teacher has been receiving different calls for abolition or at least modification going by the way the children are reduced to a life of begging on the street for survival.
Covid 19 has accentuated the fear that keeping the system as it is without taking a decisive action will only mean reserving these minors as agents and canon fodders for different human security challenges that may arise in the region.
Positively, the governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai however hinted on his Facebook page that the Northern Governors’ Forum has decided that all the Almajiri children are to be compulsorily enrolled in the primary school closest to them.
“All the children are to be compulsorily enrolled in the primary school nearest to them so they have modern education and life skills in the morning, and continue their Quranic or Islamic education in the afternoon and over the weekend. That is how many of us got our education. That is what the Northern States’ Governors’ Forum decided. These children may be the future of Northern Nigeria,” Nasir el-Rufai, the governor concluded.