Oftentimes, I don’t want to keep mute in contributing to issues responsible for the backwardness of the North. It is the region that I came from so my great grandfathers.
The Almajiri system of education has been a problem in this region for decades. A child would be sent from far away distance to a village or town in search of Islamic education, the Qur’an in particular.
His feeding, clothing and other responsibilities that are shouldered on his parents would cease; he is to do that for himself through begging.
This child will beg to feed and clothe himself all in the name of searching for Qur’anic education. The Almajiri cannot read the Qur’an better than those who are under the care of their parents; they would go to Qur’anic school and come back home to sleep, and their parents have taken full responsibility for them.
People like I who studied the Quran did not do it through almajiranci. I can recite and have memorized chapters of the Noble Book more than a thousand almajiriss.
Some parents are sending their children to Almajiranci for the fear of poverty. We are all aware that some villages where thealmajiris came from don’t have access to good water, food and other basic amenities. Many of the academics and researchers that went to these villages to carry out research can testify to my assertion, that some parents from these villages have no option but to send their children to the urban area for sustenance and to hand over their care to a Mallam.
This is someone who has biological children to take care of but he is left with the care of a thousand students. I don’t know how he can give them good training.
The abject poverty our people are is terrible, and inhumane, some leaders will not make it to heaven looking when you look at the condition of people in rural areas.
A friend of mine in Jigawa for a research project had lamented such a condition to me. She told me how the people of a community she was carrying research would walk a long distance in search of water to drink and cook.
When I asked her about the type of food these people eat, she frowned and said “forget about eating rice and stew, they survive with kwadon gari, man gyada and kuli kuli”. That is what they will eat in the morning, afternoon and evening. She told me this with her eyes full of tears.
This is why some parents sent their children to Almajiranci while to some parents, it is nothing other than greediness and irresponsibility of parenthood.
Begging and not taking the full responsibility of a child is not Islamic. Every one of us will be questioned on how he trained his children if you do good or bad to your child. God will certainly reward you accordingly.
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Many of the Almajiris are between the ages of four to seven. They can’t even bathe themselves but these irresponsible parents would continue to send them to the city because they cannot discharge their responsibilities as parents but will continue to give birth to as many children as they wish. I don’t know how a parent will give his child good training when he cannot be able to feed that child.
Will the Prophet be proud of an irresponsible child?
Almajiranci here in the North is child abuse. It is the only place where it happens in the world, where a parent will neglect and abandon a child he gave birth to under the guise that he sent him to seek Quranic education at a very young age that he needs his parent most.
Did this take place during the time of the Prophet? Would he allow it to happen under his watch or any of his companions?
So many of the reciters of the Qur’an and memorisers we are blessed with were not sent to almajiranci by their parents, they schooled under their watch and learned the Qur’an, putting what they learned into practice.
Some of these Almajiri cannot recite suratul ikhlas or falaq correctly. They are not taught the basic obligations of religion. They can’t pray as expected. The most worrisome is, that they are ignorant of Fiqh (Jurisprudence) and prophetic traditions of the prophet SAW (Hadith). I don’t know what kind of religion they are being taught.
The kind of almajiranci taking place in the North is unIslamic, primitive thus barbaric. It stands to be condemned by any responsible person in the region.
Banning or reform?
The Almajiri system of education in Northern Nigeria cannot be reformed, we’ve heard of the Almajiri model schools of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, and the reforms of Tsangaya schools in Kano. Despite all the efforts to reform the system, nothing has changed to this moment.
Parents should take full responsibility for their children, the Qur’anic education can best be taught to a child when he is under the care of his parents when he has enough time and food to eat not being distracted by the culture of begging.
The government before banning the system should consider going to the rural areas where the Almajiri’s came from by providing them with all the necessary basic amenities. That’s the essence of local government, it is nearer to the people.
When these are addressed, those parents who sent their children to Almajiranci have no excuse for hiding under the umbrella of poverty to send their children to Almajiranci.
The system should be banned by making law with severe penalties for anybody found guilty of sending his child to Almajiranci.
The future of this region will not and never be brighter with Almajiranci. The wiser we work against it, the better for the North.
Adnan Mukhtar Tudunwada can be reached via adnanmukhtaradam@gmail.com
