Lagos — As the Almajiranci phenomenon continues to grow in contrast with modern developments in the northern part of Nigerian, THISDAY investigation establishes how greed and the connivance of the elite have helped in perpetuating this beggarly tradition and practice. Mustapha Shehu writes

Like an abandoned puppy, he lay in a foetal position on the damp bare rain soaked earth, shivering from what obviously was fever. He looked not more that six years old, young enough to be in his mother's lap. But here he was, ill, malnourished, uncared for and out to fend for himself. According to a customer at the wheel balancing and alignment workshop by Dan Gombe Mechanic garage in Bauchi where he lay, he is also out there to provide for his Mallam (teacher). He is an Almajiri.

Like on all Fridays, he and his fellow Aljamajiris, numbering more than four dozens, hang around this workshop in the evening after the Friday prayers to solicit (beg) for alms from customers and other passers-by. "He is not feeling very fine", his colleagues said. "But he has taken some tablets of Panadol after the Friday prayers and he will soon be fine". They gave his name as Saminu, from Jigawa State where the ex governor, now "distinguished" senator, Saminu Turaki, is accused of stealing 17 billion Naira in just one day. Such an irony!

Like in all Muslim dominated northern states, their average age is ten. They number thousands in Bauchi metropolis alone. Most of them are not even from Bauchi State, but also from the neighbouring states, particularly Jigawa. While their peers go to formal schools in the morning, play after, then learn the Qur'an at home or in an Islamiyya (formal Qur'anic School) in the evenings, these boys, thrown into an early adult world devoid of parental care, spend the whole day after a few hours of Qur'anic memorisation at their Tsangaya (Almajiri School), to fend for themselves and also provide for their Mallam.

Sheikh Idris, an Islamic Cleric in Tanshi Quarters, Bauchi, is one of the Islamic scholars who do not subscribe to Almajiranci (being an Almajiri). In his Islamiyya, students come from their homes and different walks of life daily to learn in the formal school environment. In a chat with THISDAY he said, "it is obligatory on all Muslims-male and female, to seek for knowledge in Islam. In the days of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), his companions came to him to take lessons in Qur'an and fiqh, then went back home to teach their dependants and pursued their legitimate livelihoods.

"With time, after the death of the prophet, books on his teachings started being published and people started approaching scholars with these books to learn. In some cases people travelled far to meet such scholars, but in all cases, they pursued their legitimate trades by the side. There is no history of anyone demeaning himself by carrying a bowl to beg. Islam abhors lack of self esteem and whoever tells you begging in the form of Almajiranci or in any other form is allowed in Islam, is telling a manifest falsehood.

"You do not have to be an Almajiri to memorise the Qur'an. Almajiranci is non-existent in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world, the citadels of Islam, yet there are thousands of those who have memorised the Qur'an and learned the Hadith (teachings and practices of the Prophet) there. Learning is done in the formal school system and is sponsored by one's parents or the government. Almajiranci is basically a Hausa culture found only in Northern Nigeria and spread to countries like Chad, Niger, Mali, Togo, Ghana, Benin and Cameroon.

"These are about the only places on earth you find the Almajiri. It is in these places you find dozens or hundreds of young boys taken to a Mallam who has also gone through the Almajiranci system, by their parents who are not concerned with their general welfare or how they are fed or clothed or treated medically or disciplined, purportedly to memorise the Qur'an. Such shirking of parental responsibilities is in itself not in Islam.

"Whenever there is an attempt to address the practice of Almajiranci", the Sheikh said, "These Mallams come out vehemently to oppose it on the pretext that it is an attempt to ban the memorisation of the Qur'an. But is it even possible to ban the memorisation of the Qur'an which is the basis of Islam? These Mallams who defend the practice are doing so because they are products of it and it also favours them economically. For example, whenever government wants to come to the aid of the Almajiris, it does so per head. Such Mallams inflate the number of their Almajiris then pocket whatever is given for their upkeep.

"They even go further to tax the Almajiris to make daily returns of certain amounts to them, in the process, the Almajiris have to beg and/or do menial jobs, for if they do not make the returns, they are thoroughly beaten and tied to a tree trunk. In many cases, they run away, and afraid to return to their parents who will chastise them further for absconding from their Tsangaya, they end up in cities as praise singers or riffraff or team up with other dangerous elements in society whose warped understanding of Islam is based on its total misunderstanding, to constitute the socially dangerous Maitatsine (quack clerics) phenomenon (experienced in Kano and Maiduguri in the 80s).

"Almajiranci has become an enterprise in Nigeria that has done much harm to the dignity of Islam and Muslims. The system has produced quack clerics, undisciplined and morally bankrupt citizens, because the products, devoid of the right moral upbringing by both their parents who have abandoned them and their Mallams who only exploited them and their labour, literarily grew up on the streets," the Islamic scholar stressed.

Adamu Isa, a sociology graduate whose thesis was on the societal consequences of Almajiranci, concisely described the life of the Almajiri: "Their lives are a misery in childhood, full of hopelessness while growing up and mostly unsatisfying in adulthood". For a society that does not even recognise primary school leaving certificate for employment, this description could be very apt. Products of the Almajiri system cannot even dream of finding a formal job let alone participate in seeking elective offices. They are disenfranchised for life from contesting any elections as they are limited by the constitutional provisions of a basic minimum of a certified secondary education.

Ali, a 12-year old Almajiri who was seen hanging outside a restaurant in Maiduguri, told THISDAY that he would "love to be like the people who come out here to eat; immaculately dressed, urbane and mostly riding their own cars." He contended that they all look like Yan Boko (western educated), and when asked whether he would like to attend a Boko (western education) school, he was ecstatic but said his parents and Mallam would not subscribe to such an idea.

It would be understandable if the Mallams refuse to subscribe to the idea of their pupils attending formal western schools because their fear is hinged on going out of "business" should the pupils migrate to such schools. However, the parents' fears of the Christianisation of their children which has its roots in the early days of western education in Nigeria when its provision was dominated by Christian missionaries, is not only unfounded today, but out of place.

In today's Nigeria, government, at all the three tiers, is the biggest provider of education, and with the right political will, the fears of both parents and Mallams could be allayed, while the quest for western education for Almajiris like Ali could be satisfied.

At an interactive held towards the end of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency between the general public and the committee saddled with the responsibility of packaging the second aspect of the National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy, NEEDS-2 document, for the North East geopolitical zone in Bauchi, a suggestion that found urgency amongst participants will go a long way in allaying such fears while also meeting the western educational needs of the Almajiris.

The suggested idea, canvassed for inclusion in the NEEDS-2 document, was the introduction of primary education into the Tsangaya schools so that Qur'anic memorisation would go side by side western education. The idea entails the introduction of Primary School Mathematics, English, General Science and Social Studies into the Tsangaya schools.

After a period of studies, the primary Tsangaya Almajiris would graduate into secondary Tsangaya schools. The Mallams should still be heads of these schools and should be placed on special allowances by government, and meals provided for the Almajiris. The establishment of a National Commission on Tsangaya Education (NCTE) would provide the platform for the attainment of the goal of integrating the Tsangaya schools into western education, while still maintaining their purposed identity.

The commission should take a census of all Tsangaya schools and their Almajiris in the country with a view to collating the necessary data to classify them variously into primary and secondary Tsangaya schools. The commission should also coordinate the merger of Tsangaya schools that cannot stand on their own, provide classrooms, teaching materials and employ teachers.

Its activities should be jointly funded by the states and federal governments, with the counterpart funds from the state governments deducted at source. The commission should also assist organisations like the Jama'atul Izalatul Bid'ah wa Iqamatis Sunnah (JIBWIS) and such foundations like the Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi Foundation, which already have introduced western education into their Tsangayas and run them as Islamiyyas.

When THISDAY approached a Tsangaya Mallam in Bauchi with such a proposal he was all smiles when he understood that under such an arrangement, he would still be the head of his Tsangaya and also be paid a monthly allowance by government. Mallam Yakubu, a trader at Wunti market in Bauchi who is a product of the Almajiri system said if his northern leaders had come up with such arrangement earlier, his life, and many others' like him, would have been better now.

He berated the so-called northern leaders whom he said "had monopolised national governance for decades and instead of improving the lot of their people, have only improved themselves and their lot". Yakubu, who sounded bitter, also said "these so-called leaders have cheated us and we leave it to Allah to deal with them".

Two former northern states governors when approached by THISDAY to throw light on whether they had policies for the Almajiri while in power, declined comment. But a member of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), a northern cultural organisation dominated by the northern elite said "how could these governors have any policy for the Almajiri when they hardly have an articulated education policy?

The only policy on education they had is on how to send their children to foreign schools abroad with the proceeds of what they skimmed from the treasury, as the recent investigations and arraignment of some of them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have shown".

The ACF member also went further to chastise the ACF. He said "most of us in the ACF are former government officials. What would you expect these people to do now when they are part of the problem of the backwardness of the north having been in positions of authority in the past? Most of them are just looking for relevance because they cannot sustain their lifestyles on their pensions alone.

Writing on the use of almajiris as tool for religious/sectarian mayhem, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo "I am sure the almajiris do not sit back and rejoice at the number of "infidels" they had lynched. They are incapable of such revision. They also do not understand the full ramifications of their action. As illiterates, they hardly even know the cause, especially when it is a newspaper. I am sure that if they met a vendor they wouldn't pick out which of his papers was THISDAY.

"It has to be somebody with insidious intentions who has read the blasphemous article, and told the Imam to heat up the system. Who is this man? Who was the Imam that made the sermons and from which mosque did the riots emanate? These are the questions to ask, if solutions are to be found to tame the Almajiris," Bello-Barkindo said after the religious crisis that saw Islamic extremist and hoodlums burn this newspapers and offices in the northern part of the country over a report on the Miss World Pageant some years back.

He said their sponsors belong hypothetically to the same group that has, for decades, denied them the right to learn how to "distinguish right from wrong. If the Almajiri had well-paved streets like the ones in the GRAs he would not want them littered with corpses of Christians. If he had a job, he would not expose himself to the danger that rioting comes with. If he had a home he would not be there to be incited. If he had hope, he would not find refuge in extremism.

"Much has been said about his education but too little has been done. Even today that glorified Almajiris are governors in some states, the street Almajiris situation remains the same. We are led by a bunch of losers who have been presiding over our economic decline and are about to bequeath mediocrity to the future generation. Their task in the north is to redouble their efforts in education while containing the risks or else when eventually the Christians are not there to attack, all of us will constitute the next target.

In spite of the bitterness of people like Yakubu, even with the attended curse, the Nigerian elite, particularly the Northern Muslims, some of whose children are studying at schools in America, Europe and Malaysia, forgetting to fear the God they will one day stand before; have kept mute over the plight of these Almajiris. What they forget, according to Yakubu, is that no matter how long their children study abroad, they will have to come back home one day and live in the same society with the Almajiris, since they cannot create their separate society.