Some days ago, a friend forwarded to me the
summary of a law said to be signed by the Katsina state Governor, His
Excellency Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari on the regulation of almajirci in Katsina
state. The law tagged “RESPONSIBLE PARENTING/ALMAJIRI RIGHT PROTECTION EDIT”
seeks to protect the child from abuse, at least according to its authors.
After the definitions, the Katsina edict
provides for a commission or a department to be headed by a director to run as
an independent department. The law prohibits any parent from sending their
child to a Qur’anic school if he is less than 12 years old. The parent shall
make provision for decent clothing and feeding for the child while the Qur’anic
teacher shall provide accommodation. The child must not come from outside
Katsina state unless the teacher undertakes to take his full responsibility. In
addition, no child should be taken to a Qur’anic school outside the state
unless he is at least 12 years of age.
The Government on its part shall provide
medical facilities to all children in registered Qur’anic schools and make sure
that they are registered under the NHIS scheme. Assistance of unspecified
amounts shall be provided to all registered Qur’anic schools by the Government
from time to time, according to the document.
The move by the Katsina state Government, I
would like to believe, was done in good faith. Governor Masari deserves our
commendation for it. He has abandoned the futile waiting for Northern Governors
Forum or the Central Government to take a decision. I, however, had my humble
observations which I didn’t want to make public immediately for two reasons.
One, to avoid the wrong notion that I m against everything coming from Government,
especially Katsina state Government. Only days ago I criticized the Governor
for his approach to security. Two, and more importantly, to wait and see the
details of what the Government has in mind.
But just as I was waiting, I saw the National
Security adviser on my TV screen making comments about what he called ‘street
urchins’. Hear him, ‘The group I spoke about on illiteracy is the almajiri.
Ultimately, government will have to proscribe the almajiri phenomena, because
we cannot continue to have street urchins, children roaming around, only for
them in a couple of years or decades to become a problem to society.’
I was dumbfounded. First, the Federal
Government has a big ministry and a litany of agencies in charge of education.
It is their responsibility to define what illiteracy is and who is an
illiterate. There has been a lot of work, in the past, done by the Federal
Ministry of Education and universities like Bayero University and states like
Kano on the interfacing of Qur’anic schools with formal schools. But instead of
the retired General to refer to the right quarters for the right definition, he
decided to opine that anybody who has not gone through the western-style school
is an illiterate. The unfortunate thing is that he is in the office he is.
But that may not even be a major problem. Many
people understand illiteracy the way the General does. What ordinary Nigerians
like me want to hear from the National security advisor and see on the ground
are the actions they are taking on the spate of kidnappings, killings and
animal rustling bedevilling the North. What are his office and the larger
ministry of defence doing about these and about herders moving their cattle
into farmlands and destroying farmers’ crops? Even their worst enemy
knows that almajirai are not responsible for these crimes. Why will the
security team of this administration like to go for soft targets instead of
addressing the major security challenges facing the country?
By the way, if these children who are mainly of
poor background abandon almajirci where does the NSA want them to go and get
the right western education? Certainly since their parents cannot afford
private schools the only place they can go are Government schools. Does the NSA
know the condition of Government basic schools? Does he know how crowded they
are and that majority of children who go to Government schools cannot write a
correct paragraph after completing their secondary schools in twelve years?
The products of Qur’anic schools that many of
us deride are better than the product of Government basic schools. At least at
the end of the day the former can recite the Qur’an the way it is taught in
those schools.
Please do not misquote me. I m not saying all
is well with Qur’anic schools. There are big problems with our Qur’anic
schools, but most of them are part of our greater problem. Northern Muslims
have not been able to change our ways in most of the things we inherited from
the past. Our method of farming, for example, is as done precolonially. This
applies to both crop and animal farming. Our emirs still spend most of their
days sitting in the palace as done five hundred years ago and have not changed
their approach to cope with new challenges facing their people. The teaching
methods in our traditional Qur’anic schools have not undergone any change for
over a hundred years.
The problem of begging associated with children
in Qur’anic schools is only one of such problems. The last time Bishop Matthew Kukah
wanted to establish almajiri centres all of us rose to condemn it. But it ended
there. Can’t we even do what he wanted to do, even if we cannot modify it? What
is the matter with us that we can only condemn and praise but cannot go a step
further to take any positive action to solve a common problem?
The major concern of majority of Northern
Muslim elites about Qur’anic schools is the begging aspect but not the
promotion of Qur’anic education. I would thus like to call on Governors like
Masari who have concern for Qur’anic education to go further and make policies
that will improve the contents of our Qur’anic schools and look into more ways
they can prevent our children from abuse.
As for the NSA, I would advise him to
concentrate on consolidating the gains so far made on security and liaise with
Education ministry, state Governors and religious leaders on matters of Quranic
schools.
