Nura Mohammed (10) gets up from the
worn-out mat in the uncompleted
building where he and his mates rest
their heads at night. Goats may not find
the small rooms where he and 15 others
sleep conducive as there are no windows
for cross-ventilation and the walls have
given room to cracks looking as if it will
fall the next minute. The occupants are,
indeed, vulnerable to all forms of airborne
diseases associated with the harsh
Maiduguri weather. His face baked in the
dust from the floor of the uncompleted
building like someone coming out of sand
dunes. He looks pale, apparently due to
malnutrition, with blisters on his lips. The
dryness of his face and rashes on his skin
suggest the harmattan has taken its toll
on him.
Mohammed performs ablution, says his
morning prayers (Subhi) and joins his
mates under the tree for the daily
learning of the Qur`an. After the morning
lessons, without taking his bath, he goes
out like others with his bowl to beg for
food. He repeats this ritual three times a
day for as long as he is a student in this
school. For him, life begins and ends at
the school. For the likes of Mohammed,
there is no room for dreams, ambition or
career guidance. He lives life the way it
comes -- on daily basis. This is a day in
the life of Nura Mohammed, the face of
the popular almajiri pupils, swarming the
streets of northern Nigeria like locusts.
He was brought to the Tsangaya School
in Maiduguri three years ago by his
father, a rice farmer in Zabarmari village
of Jere local government area of Borno
State. Mohammed from a polygamous
family was enrolled in the school with his
half-brother Umar (5) and since then
they have lost contact with their parents.
Mohammed is one of the over five million
children clad in tattered clothes begging
on the streets of northern Nigeria and
seeking Quranic education in the
Tsangaya School, popularly called
Almajirci.
The attitude of the society towards these
almajiris is a complex paradox. Some treat
them with contempt and exploit them,
while others give them alms and food out
of sympathy or after using them to run
errands. This probably accounts for why
most homes in northern Nigeria engage
the services of these children on daily
basis. Yusuf Ibrahim, an almajiri who was
taken from Malumfashi in Katsina State
to Sokoto in Sokoto State, accused the
society of being antagonistic to them. He
says, “No one wants to give you anything,
you either have to wash plates, clothes or
fetch water before they give you
anything." The few who realise that they
are being used often become aggressive
and resent the tokens doled out to them.
Yusuf Danjuma, a Maiduguri resident,
said almajiris cannot be blamed for
“ carrying hostility and anger on their
faces, as no one shows them affection
but looks for an opportunity to use them
for one purpose or the other before
assisting them and many of them have
never experienced parental care in their
lives.
“The experience of Ilyasu Abdullahi, an
almajiri for seven years, is an illustration
of that assessment. Abdullahi who says
he and four of his siblings are in different
tsangaya schools in northern Nigeria
claim that they visit their parents once in
two years. He says though the condition
under which they live is almost inhuman
because basic things like food and
clothing are lacking, they have no option
because their parents are poor. His
greatest problem is that each time he
sees other children in company of their
parents, he feels depressed. Abdullahi
laments that the current economic
hardship is taking its toll on them as they
hardly get leftovers nowadays. Rather,
they have resorted to doing menial jobs
like nail cutting, cap weaving and
cobbling to feed.
So why would a parent leave his child to
fate? Bello Abdulsalam, a parent who has
three children in the school, says he
embraced the system because he lacks
the means to cater for the children,
adding that no one will like to lose contact
with his kids for years. According to Goni
Usman, a tsangaya mallam (teacher),
"almajiri pupils learn the Qur`an under a
teacher three times a day without good
shelter, food or health care and away
from their parents, some of who are
hundreds of kilometres away. His
consolation lies in the belief that his
suffering in the world is for the reward
that awaits him in heaven. He learns how
to recite and memorise the holy book in
verses, chapters and write them on a
wooden slate called Allo. Afterwards, he
cleans the verses he has memorised and
he is instructed to proceed to another
chapter (Surah) as soon as his teacher is
satisfied that he has mastered the last
one he was taught.
The word almajiri, according to Sheik
Abba Aji, a renowned Maiduguri-based
Islamic scholar, is a word borrowed from
Arabic language and derived from the
word "Al-Muhajir ” meaning a seeker of
Islamic knowledge. The almajiri system of
education practised in northern Nigeria
has its origin in the migration of Prophet
Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. Those
who migrated with the prophet to Medina
were called “Al-Muhajirrun,” meaning
emigrants, while those they met there
were referred to as “Ansar,” meaning
helpers. To Aji, “these emigrants (Al-
Muhajirrun) because of the
circumstances of their migration had no
means of livelihood on getting to Medina,
but based on the fraternity established
by the prophet between the two groups,
they did not engage in begging but rather
were co-opted by the Ansar in their
various trades and vocations as
apprentices who were paid for their
services. ” Aji says Islam frowns at
begging in any form because it reduces a
Muslim`s self-esteem and dignity.
Hence, begging on the streets of
northern Nigeria by these Tsangaya
pupils is contrary to the teachings of
Qur`an and Hadith.
Usman, who has memorised the Qur`an,
says there is no specific age when a child
is enrolled into the system, but the
standard practice is seven years. The
duration of his scholarship as an almajiri
has no time limit but dependent on his
intellectual capability as what matters is
for him to memorise the Qur`an. Thus, he
has three stages to fully graduate from
the system, which comprises learning the
Qur`an by heart (Tilawa), memorising it
(Hafizi) and perfecting his ability to write
the whole Qur`an devoid of errors on
sheets of paper or slate off-hand (Darasi).
This, to Usman, takes at least 20 or more
years for one to accomplish. If a child
starts at age seven, by the time he
concludes the Quaranic study he would
probably assume that he is too old to
enrol for formal education.
Abdulkareem Kwando, a medical doctor in
Kano, says the condition under which
these street urchins live makes them to
develop very strong immunity to illnesses
and diseases, which sometimes baffle
medical practitioners. He however warns
that when they become infected it is
usually fatal.
One baffling aspect of these almajiris is
their eating habit. They consume all kinds
of food, fresh or stale, but they rarely fall
sick. The magazine ran into a group of
almajiris in Wudil village of Kano State
eating a combination of food they had
warmed on a small kerosene stove. The
food, a combination of locally made corn
food (Tuwo), pasta and boiled yam
altogether in one bowl, looked like a fresh
vomit. Shah Muhammadu, one of the
boys told the magazine that it is called
“ Jagala”, being a combination of food
stored by an almajiri over a number of
days. However, when an almajiri gets
some fresh food, he could play pranks
with his colleagues. At such times he
would sneak away from his mates to eat
alone.
In Kano State, according to a 2009
statistics from the education ministry,
there are 1.6 million almajiris in 26,000
Tsangaya schools across the 44 local
government areas of the state. Sokoto
State has 1.1 million almajiris in 19,167
schools but the Sokoto State Ministry of
Religious Affairs says this figure is not
conclusive as there are still cases of
omission in some of the villages; Kaduna
State has 824,233, while Borno State,
reputed as a centre of Islamic learning,
has 389,048 almajiri pupils.
The breakdown for Borno State is as
follows Borno indigenes 266,160,
followed by those from other states
totalling 118,280, non-Nigerians are
4,608. There are 4,464 Sangaya
mallams. Algoni Kassim, desk officer,
Quranic education, Borno State Universal
Basic Education, says the figure is not
conclusive, as the almajiri census is still
ongoing. The National Council for the
Welfare of Destitutes in Nigeria says
there are about seven million almajiris or
teenage beggars in northern Nigeria.
These figures may have confirmed what
Aja Nwachukwu, former minister of
education, said in April 2008 that Nigeria
accounted for over 11 million out 80
million children who were out of school in
the world.
Goni Habib, an octogenarian, who has
produced over 300 Qur`an memorisers
who run schools across various states in
northern Nigeria, says the Tsangaya
system is a pattern of Islamic education
acquisition by children of northern origin
consisting of a mallam and his pupils. He
says that the learning done in a small
enclosure, serving as classroom, only
requires a pupil having a wooden slate.
The mallam and his pupils sometimes
move about from one area to another
depending on his age. He observes that
there is no specific requirement for
registration in a Tsangaya school. So,
how does the teacher emerge? Habib
says the teacher only needs the verbal
certification of his own teacher before he
can supervise pupils learning the Qur`an.
Though this system has produced
prominent Islamic scholars of northern
extraction like Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, Late
Abubakar Gumi, Jaa`far Adam and Kala
Rawi, Habib says the Tsangaya system as
it is presently run is a corruption of the
original. Hear him, “Almajiris, during our
time about 60 years ago did not beg and
were held in high esteem in northern
Nigeria, houses in the neighbourhood
bring food in calabash every day, we help
our teacher on the farm, gather firewood
from the bush which we use to read at
night, assist his wife with domestic
chores for food in return and no pupil is
taxed as the teacher gets his reward from
Allah. ” He laments that at his age of 86,
he sometimes feels like weeping because
the present crop of Tsangaya students
lacks the spirit of scholarship like
endurance, morals, discipline and their
intellectual capacity is low. The sad thing
now is that they are vulnerable to
criminal activities. So what is the
authority doing to save the day?
The Northern Governors Forum at their
meeting at the Hassan Usman Katsina
House, Kaduna in 2000 pledged to put an
end to the almajiri syndrome through
structural reforms. At the meeting where
they adopted far-reaching resolutions,
the governors identified worst hit areas
like Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano and Borno
states. However, nine years after, little or
nothing seems to have been achieved
and the present northern governors are
still singing the old tune. The result is
that the almajiris are growing in
geometrical progression, turning the
once lofty system of Quranic education
into another form of modern slavery and
the worst form of child abuse. This is
because on daily basis they are taken to
the cities in hundreds and in trailers and
dumped with various mallams.
Of all the northern states, only Kano and
Sokoto have made appreciable progress
towards restructuring the Tsangaya
system by setting up pilot programmes to
test-run model schools. Shehu Galadanci,
special adviser to Kano State governor on
education and Information Technology,
whose office oversees the programme,
says four out of six planned, pilot schools
have been set up in Tudun Wada, Gwarzo,
Wudil and Ungogo.
Musa Maitafsir, a professor and Sokoto
State commissioner for religious affairs,
says N67 million has been earmarked for
building four model schools at four
different entry points into the state. The
first one, consisting of four blocks of eight
classrooms, a storey building and a
mosque, located on Gusau road, has
reached advanced stage of completion.
He says uniforms, books and hostel
accommodation will be provided free of
charge. Other ones will be sited on Birnin
Kebbi road, Ilela and Wurno road.
Sources say the state government was
initially giving monthly allowance and
food items to the mallams to feed
themselves and the children, but
government stopped it when it learnt
that the mallams were diverting or
appropriating the money. Galadanci,
however, denies the claim, saying that
the programme was stopped because the
burden of financial commitment was
much on the state government as “it was
a big challenge feeding 26,000 Sangaya
schools and maintaining 3,000
conventional schools. ” The new
approach by government was to cater for
those in the model schools and give
seedlings, fertilisers and farm
implements to mallams living in rural
areas.
Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State
had in 2006 promised to integrate the
Tsangaya system into western
education. But three years after, his
government is still compiling the list of
Sangaya pupils and teachers. Mohammed
Imam, commissioner for education, says
the state government has set up a
committee of Ulamas to work out the
modalities, but the magazine`s
investigations do not reveal anything on
ground.
Goni Zarami, Borno State chairman,
Tsangaya association, says the governor
lacks the political will to reform the
system as he has written 37 letters to
him from 2003 on how to change the
fortunes of the system but no response.
“ I am tired and vowed not to write again
as the monthly allowance given to 1,090
Tsangaya mallams of N3,000 monthly
started by the Kachallah administration is
still what we are living on.
Salisu Tambuwal, a Zamfara-based
Islamic scholar, reads hypocrisy into the
supposed efforts of the northern
governors. He says for the nine years
some impact should have been made in
the area of poverty alleviation, which is
the root cause of this problem. To him,
“ there is no sincerity in their hearts
because if they eradicate the problem,
there will be no place for them to recruit
political thugs, and that is why what we
hear on daily basis is government
officials going to Malaysia and Egypt to
understudy how their own Tsangaya
system is run.” Tambuwal alludes to
reports of some panels probing ethno-
religious crises in the region, which
indicted almajiris as being ready foot
soldiers oiling the vehicle of
conflagration.
Mustapha Sani, another Tsangaya
student for eight years, describes the
much- talked-about plan by government
to integrate the Tsangaya system into
formal education as a fluke. “We are tired
of so much talk, but no action as many
government officials have come to our
school to record our number and needs
but nothing comes out of it, ” says Sani.
Sani, apparently echoing the views of
many of his mates and mallams across
northern Nigeria, believes the integration
is like trying to merge water and fire. He
says he is against the integration, as it
will make the almajiris abandon Islamic
teachings for western values.
This brings to the fore another aspect of
the conflict where mallams and the pupils
see the reform as a threat to their
religious belief. The age-long cultural and
religious belief in the North is that
western education has no value to the
Muslim. Perhaps, the reality is that the
mallams see the move as a way of
scrapping their means of survival. For
instance, such a reform will take away
the midweek tax, called ``Kudin Sati``,
imposed on all almajiris by the teachers.
Adamu Hussein, a Sokoto-based Islamic
scholar, has described Muslim scholars
condemning western education as
"intellectually deficient persons. ” Backing
up his submission, the scholar said
Prophet Muhammad urged all Muslims in
his Hadith to seek knowledge in all its
ramifications and never allow
themselves to be held down by
geographical barriers. ” He adds that the
image problem facing Muslims around
the world today makes it compulsory for
adherents of the Islamic faith to lead the
way in the search for knowledge about
science, medicine, engineering and
information and communication
technology so as to rebrand themselves.
The chairman of Northern Governors
Forum, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has
stressed the need for societal
reorientation in the North. Hear him: “We
need to discourage the ranka ya dade
syndrome, which abuses and
dehumanises the people by offering
them stipends out of the often stolen
wealth, and encourages laziness while
some of us go about in arrogance. We also
need to address the embarrassing
almajiri phenomenon in our states; we
need to question what appears as the
Islamisation of poverty. We need to ask,
why do we have endemic poverty in
Muslims dominated settlements, when
Allah has enjoined the faithful to balance
the search for the thereafter with the
search for this world? ”
Aliyu, who was speaking at a one-day
symposium on Poverty Eradication in
Northern States, organised by the Niger
State Community of Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, Kaduna State, put the
average poverty rate in the region at 71
per cent, noting that traditional rulers in
the country, particularly in the North, are
corrupt, support corruption and have lost
the respect and moral authority to correct
their subjects. The passage of the Child`s
Rights Act 2003 by the National
Assembly gave a glimmer of hope that it
might be the magic wand to save these
children. But, the refusal of most
northern states to domesticate the law as
directed by the federal government has
become like a camel passing through the
eye of a needle. Umar Labaran, a legal
practitioner and Borno State chairman of
Muslim Lawyers Association of Nigeria,
says the act seeks to confer unto parents
those duties, responsibilities and
obligations to their children, whose
realisation will lead to proper
development of the child .
Apart from Zamfara State whose
lawmakers passed a law meant to check
child abuse, all others have rejected it
outrightly.
Reason: they argue that the contents
contradict Islamic values and also a
deliberate attempt to bring western
values which allow a child to seek redress
in the courts against his parents should
he feel his rights have been trampled
upon. The act, according to the
magazine`s findings, has about 16
sections which most northern states are
contesting. Prominent among the issues
raised in these contentious sections are
giving equal rights to children born in and
outside wedlock, prohibition of child
betrothal and marriage, prohibition of
hawking by children, use of scientific
tests to determine paternity and
maternity and right to dignity and
provisions of guidance with respect to
child`s responsibilities.
Hadiza Magaji, treasurer of the lawyers`
association and deputy registrar, Borno
State High Court, says the act, despite the
criticisms, is not completely a useless
document as it has very good provisions
to take care of the almajiri syndrome.
What is required is a comprehensive
review to expunge all aspects considered
contradictory to the teachings of Islam as
the children are victims of all sorts of
exploitation by the society including
ritualists.”
Another pre-disposing factor to the
growing number of almajiri pupils in the
North is the peoples` antagonism
towards family planning and child
spacing citing the hadith of Prophet
Mohammed which says, “Go forth my
congregation, get married and multiply so
that I will be proud of you. ” But Adamu
Sani, a veterinary doctor, says this aspect
of the Hadith has been grossly
misrepresented. He says under Sharia,
some of the basic rights of a child are
food, shelter, clothing and education and
so any parent who fails in this direction
has an explanation to give before Allah.”
Adamu adds that there are birth control
practices accepted by Islam and
economic realities of today make it
necessary for every parent to breed
those children he can cater for.
Maikaramba Sadiq, Borno State co-
ordinator, Civil Liberties Organisation,
CLO, says the northern culture is the
most antagonistic culture towards
fundamental human rights because
Islam frowns at child abuse and being
dirty. He added that “almajiris are the
dirtiest set of people in the society and
the Qur`an says one`s faith is incomplete
unless you are clean. ”
Musa Maitafsir says the findings of the
committee set up by the Sokoto State
government has revealed that there is
proliferation of almajiris for three
reasons: “The love for Quranic education,
poverty and redundancy in the villages.”
He says, “By May when you go to these
Tsangaya schools you find very few
pupils but once the food harvest starts
going down, the parents start sending
the children back in batches. ”
The National Assembly through the
Senate made another effort to end the
almajiri problem by proposing a bill for the
enactment of the National Commission
for the Eradication of Child Destitution in
Nigeria in 2008. The bill, popularly known
as the almajiri bill and sponsored by
Umaru Argungu and 31 others, seeks to
punish any proprietor of an unregistered
Tsangaya school with two years jail term.
Does the solution really lie in imposing
sanctions on a people that believe they
are observing a religious injunction?
What really can be done, in the face of the
opposition by the almajiris and the
malams? The duo of Labaran and Abba
Aji believe the way forward is for the law
and constitution to recognise it as a
system of education and also inculcate
into its curriculum, a form of trade or
vocation that the almajiris will be
acquiring over the years so as to have
something to fall back on after
graduation.
While it remains to be seen if the pilot
programmes currently being run in Kano
and Sokoto states will not go with the
governors who initiated them, the fate of
almajiris in the region remains uncertain.
This is because as many northern
governors strategise for 2011, either for
re-election or to instal successors, the
almajiris, living like orphans, raise up their
hands awaiting Allah`s divine favour for
a better tomorrow.