Dr. Tajudeen Abdulraheem
19 July 2008
opinion
I was born and brought up in a predominantly Muslim community but the best schools around were fee paying Christian missionary schools. Our parents were ambitious enough for us that they had no hesitation about paying (government schools were free) to get us into these schools. They were strong enough in their faith to trust that we were there 'for their knowledge not their God' and so it was. I can only recall one incident of a Muslim pupil who converted to Christianity for all the years the school was run by the Baptist missionaries. By the time we left primary school, the school had become majority Muslim and taken over by the state government (now Shehu Primary School).
In those days, there was a clear distinction between kids exclusively going to Qur'anic schools (Almajirai) and those of us either going only to 'western' schools or combining both. The Almajirai were often children living far away from their homes having been given up to seek Islamic knowledge and upbringing by their faithful parents (fathers usually decide this) whereas those of us 'Yan boko' (pupils in state or missionary schools) will generally be living with our parents/guardians and going to school during the day and returning to our homes in the afternoon. Qur'anic schools will then be in the afternoon during school days and morning and evening at weekends.
The Qur'anic schools were private initiatives and designed to ensure that you learn the whole of the 114 chapters of the Qur'an by heart first, and you spend more years learning the translation and going further into the religion as a knowledge system including learning the Arabic language. Unfortunately for many of us 'yan makarantan boko', the higher you climbed up the western educational ladder, the less likely you are to return to the Qur'anic schools. So, you get the incongruous situation of knowing the Qur'an or parts of it by heart without actually knowing the Arabic language. Your knowledge is thus short-circuited through received interpretations of Mallams and Sheiks (teachers and learned scholars).
There is also a bifurcated expectation about both schools. While the Qur'anic education may be preparing the pupils for a spiritual life style and possibly better prospects in heaven, when and if you get there, the western education offered better prospects for the here and now in terms of career and often, exaggerated expectations, of material well being. Consciously and unconsciously two classes of kids begin to emerge. Almajirai generally live off menial jobs, in between their learning sessions, obligatory labour on their teachers' farms and begging. The western pupils live as all children are entitled to: cared for both physically and emotionally by their parents and guardians. The Almajirai live on the whim of their spiritual masters and the goodwill of the community.
If you look at these two groups of children on the streets of any Muslim area of northern Nigeria, you could distinguish who is who from their appearance. Generally the ones going to western schools will be better dressed, neater, wearing at least slippers and looking well fed. The Almajirai will be wearing formerly white kaftans that had become so dirty that no stain remover can return them to the original color; their feet may be full of blisters or even jiggers because of going around without shoes or slippers, in rain or sunshine.
In the oil boom days, the communities were generally better off and able to share. Therefore, when they cook in most homes they will cook more than was necessary for their household. The rationale is not just that visitors may come but also that 'akwai Almajirai' (i.e. the Almajirai will come). This kind of culture enabled the Almajirai to eke out a living, get decent meals on most days. Also, spiritual minded people with disposable income or the elite wishing to spiritually launder their ill-gotten wealth were more than generous in contributing to the welfare of the Almajirai and their minders.
However, as the oil boom gave way to oil bust and people began to tighten their belts, disposable incomes became less and even lesser the welfare of the Almajirai (being the marginalised among the marginalised or to use a term not used often these days, periphery of the periphery!) went crashing. The system was too dependent on a perpetual 'trickle down' voluntarism of the better off. The hours the Almajirai spend on learning the Qur'an became shorter as the exigencies of survival in this world before preparing for heaven took precedence. the SAP hit everyone in the 80s and 90s as the rich got richer and meaner and poor became even poorer and life more brutish and the elite wantonly rapacious.
For many ordinary working and peasant families, there was not enough to go round inside the house let alone think of the wondering children on the streets. The really rich who could afford generally became more distant from the community. Even if they do not move from their local communities, they live behind garrisoned perimeter fences with all kinds of 'security' around them that the poor cannot see them. They, out of sight of the masses, and the masses were definitely out of their minds.
The impact on the children was and remains devastating. As the economic situation became harder, the old distinctions between the Almajiri and dan boko of my childhood days have become very blurred. The Almajirai did not become 'yan boko' but the 'yan boko' became Almajirai.
A few days ago, I was at the neighbourhood where I grew up, Tsohuwar Tasha, now called Goya Road, in Funtua, Katsina State. The same building has been our family home since 1965. I looked at the children milling around the same trees as my peers and I did over four decades ago and it was difficult to say who is an Almajiri who is dan boko. They have all become Almajirai whether at home or on the street. In fact, they have all become street children because the Almajiri at home does not have enough to eat therefore no one can think of the Almajiri on the street. Sadder still, those in Qur'anic schools are not learning the Qur'an properly while most of those in western schools cannot be said to be receiving education. So, we are neither preparing our children for this world nor the hereafter or both. What kind of country and leadership dooms the future of its own children this way? Of what benefit is the accumulating foreign reserves of Nigeria if most of the children are surrendered to hard fate like this, robbed of dreams, forced to grow up in neglect and denied their innocence? Is our conscience dead?
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
