After visits to some Northern cities and local communities, Adewale Adeoye reports on the travails of millions of Almajiri who scavenge for livelihood from dusk to dawn in what has become a timeless tradition but is now compounded and may turn awry in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
We sat in a row on a long wooden bench awaiting bread and sandwiches. It was the only dinner possible in this cold, late evening in Maiduguri, Borno State, after an exhaustive indirect flight from Lagos coupled with a long drive to a dingy hotel in the historic city’s suburb.
Earlier at the Maiduguri Airport in the twilight of that Tuesday, we had noticed Red Cross officials at the terminal. Scores of soldiers formed a ring round a chopper parked on the tarmac. One official said insurgents had spurred an increase in defence build-ups around the Maiduguri Airport following ceaseless campaigns by Boko Haram, the extremist Islamic group wanting to establish a political foothold in the city. It was not long ago that the violent group had attacked villages not far from the state capital, burning and looting. Driving through the city, the chilling specter of fear could be felt. Later, as we settled for dinner, we noticed a motley crowd of extremely poor Almajiri staring wildly at us like patient vultures awaiting the dispatch of rotten animal flesh.
From the glow of the street light, one could see their prowling, desperate eyeballs focused on our direction. Each had a bowl in hand. Some were teens; some were in their early twenties; many were toddlers. Half a dozen stood out as minors; less than five years old.
The kids surged politely at us, waiting for our emotion to be invoked by their vulnerable conditions: tattered clothing, bare foot, torn knickers, worn out shirts and generally unkempt body. But there was some sort of orderliness in the way they partitioned the left overs and cash given to them with the one who appeared oldest taking full responsibility of leadership.
The child as a mother
“This is the way we live. It is the only way we can survive. We are Almajiri”, Ahmad Musa, one of the kids, barely ten, said in Hausa. Ahmad is just one of the over 30 million Almajirai in Nigeria. He was born into a family of 45 children by a father who has 10 wives and numerous mistresses. Ahmad was born when his mother, Medinat was 14. An obviously witty and intelligent Ahmad said in Hausa “My mother was a child. She gave birth to me. A child gave birth to a child. Mother and child should have been kept with a mother.”
He could not remember knowing his father while his mother had divorced his father, married another old man, thrice her age somewhere in Nguru, also in Borno State. Ahmad and his friends, about 25 of them, soon dispersed into the obscuring atmosphere, prattling along.
Again, on a Friday in Kano, weeks after the visit to Maiduguri, in the morning of a Friday, shortly after the morning prayers, hundreds of Almajirai, all children lined the streets having woken up from under the trees or in kiosks where they passed the night in the chilling cold without protection from pneumonia, flu and mosquitoes. Though news of Covid-19 was already trending, but to most Nigerians at this time, it was like the mewing of a lonely cat in the wilderness.
Adjacent the Tahir Hotel in Kano, hundreds of the mostly little children were seen prowling the streets usually from dawn to nightfall, looking for what to eat and sometimes offering themselves as tools for willing hands.
The almajiri syndrome is a time honoured culture in Northern Nigeria. Children enrolled in traditional Quranic schools are generally referred to as Almajiri. The Hausa word’s etymology came from the Arabic word “Al-muhajirun” which means someone who leaves his house for another place in the search for Islamic knowledge. Some also trace the word to earliest men who barter their comfort for Islamic knowledge while they followed Prophet Mohammed (SAW) at the period of the Hijira movement from Mecca to Medina. “They arrived without any having anything. This was why those who had the means were enjoined to extend generosity to the migrants as a duty of faith,” said Dr Auwal Umar, who has done extensive research on the subject, indicating there has been Almajiri as far back as the 11th century.
The school under which they study is referred to as Tsangaya, a Kanuri word adopted in the time of Mai Ali Gaji (1503 C.E). The Almajiri are usually given to mallams by their parents for Islamic knowledge.
A culture with long history
However, the process involves a lot of sociological duties ranging from using the children for labour, begging and other menial jobs. In recent times and for many reasons, many Northern political figures have been calling for the scrapping of the system in the face of new realities, especially as the numbers of recruits grow in proportion to social upheavals in many Northern states. With the Covid-19’s spread, it is expected that the calls for the scrapping will re-echo. Yet, the dissenting calls have been met with cold resistance from defenders and beneficiaries of the system.
“With the spread of coronavirus in Nigeria, there are fresh concerns about the Almajiri culture” said Rasaq Olokooba, a right activist from Ilorin, Kwara State.
As at last week, over 350 cases and more than 10 deaths were recorded across the country.
With Covid 19, the concerns of many observers have tripled about the future of Almajiri, millions of whose livelihood is nurtured by begging from one street to the other in large numbers and who end the day sleeping in crowded tents in what has become a time-tested art. Experts are wondering how the pandemic will affect about 30 million Almajiri spread across the northern and in some Southern states where they often prowl the streets as beggars. A source said many Islamic leaders in the north are deeply worried about what fate will befall the Almajiri if it turns out that the pandemic makes a loud presence in northern states. “It will be a disaster never before seen,” a teacher in an Islamic school in Kano who does not wish to be named told our correspondent. Last week, Northern Governors said they would not shutdown their states citing the agrarian tradition of the northern masses. But a top Islamic cleric who preferred anonymity told our correspondent that the refusal of the Northern Governors to shut down was informed by the fear of upheaval led by the Almajiri.
“Shutdown in the core northern states will mean the poor people who roam the streets cannot go anywhere. If it lasts for days and weeks, I can assure you many states will see violent street demonstrations. This is why some clerics preach to them that there is nothing like coronavirus.” He, however, said a lockdown in the north is necessary if Covid-19 is to be confronted. Last week, Kano State Governor, Abdulahi Ganduje took the lid off the boiling saucepan. He ordered a shut down after discovering one Covid-19 patient. Olokooba said it remains a ‘major problem’ dealing with the poverty of millions of Almajirai in the Covid-19 era.
On April 13, the government extended the lockdown in the country’s twin states, Lagos and Ogun, the country’s economic hubs. The extension also covers Abuja, the country’s capital. Though the Alamjiri system started in the north, millions of them could be found in Lagos and Ogun, the states that habour the chunk of their population among the South West states.
“Covid-19 poses one of the greatest challenges to Almajiri system. These children live permanently in poor and vulnerable conditions. If there is any real danger of Covid-19, it is the potential implication for the Almajiri system in Nigeria”, Ishmail Ahmed, an Islamic scholar in Kano State said the worst part is that the almajiri are not an integral part of the social security system administered by the Federal and State Governments, adding that any attempt to impose stay at home for a long period in the northern states may spur “spontaneous uprising.”
A drop in the proverbial ocean
President Buhari had said 92% of all Covid-19 identified, their contacts have been identified while testing capacity has been increased to 1,500 per day, 7,000 healthcare workers have also been trained with National Centre for Disease Control, (NDDC) teams deployed to 19 states. Buhari also ordered relevant agencies for a “Nigerian economy functioning with Covid-19.”
The president increased the social register from 2.6million households to 3.6million. As at last week, the death toll across the world was about 80,000. But Chairman of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre), Mr Olanrewaju Suraju, said the federal government’s initiative is impressive but unlikely that the almajiri would ever benefit from the scheme in spite of their extremely poor conditions.
“They are the poorest of the poor. Because of their social conditions, they are most vulnerable to the spread of diseases. Apart from their poor conditions, we are also concerned about their social and living conditions. The almajiri are not captured in the government palliatives”, Suraju said asking: How will almajiri abide with social distancing when they “permanently live in a crowd?” He wondered how they would cope with the “stay at home” or “a lockdown” order when their survival mandates them to trek for kilometers looking for food.
Alhaji Muktah Yerima who lives in Borno State told our correspondent in Maidguri that “Almajiri are in millions. They are mainly children. They live on hope. They wake up each morning without food, water, soap to bath and no dream of medicare. In Borno alone, there are close to 500,000 almajiri, mostly children.” He said any attempt to ask people to stay at home “will cause a social revolution.”
He, however, pondered that in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak in the north, an infection of one almajiri is likely to endanger over 1,000 children and households in less than one hour because of their ways of life. He said with Covid-19, many almajiri will be at peril’s end in case the pandemic hits their social communities which seem almost imminent.
In a research conducted by Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) with the support of United Kingdom-based Anti-Slavery International (ASI), coordinated by Dr Auwal Umar, the almajiri is found to have witnessed a lot of dynamics. The research was tagged “Understanding the nature and effectiveness of state and non-state interventions on forced child begging in Nigeria” the publication was presented for pair review recently in Abuja.
In the report, CHRICED warned on the deadly impact of any outbreak of diseases in the north on almajiri. The warning seems to have become relevant in the present context.
The research noted that the almajiri system began a long time ago and had faced various transformations over the years. For instance, it observed that the first threat to the practice came in 1904, when the British invaded northern Nigeria leading to the abolition of state funding of almajiri for Western education which sought to manipulate the people. The mallams (teachers) subsequently lost their jobs. It noted that this compelled the students in the Islamic schools to go out to beg while they are also employed as labourers in the cause of assisting their teachers.
The study looked at three states, Borno, Nasarawa and Kano with “clear differences in their composition, life patterns, environmental and socio-economic as well as political challenges.” The study observed that the almajiri system worked among “African Muslim communities with reasonable satisfaction” until the 1970s when it began to face renewed challenges. While it acknowledged the contributions of the programme to knowledge acquisition for children coupled with Spartan upbringing, it admitted the floundering fortunes of the programme with the passage of time as various interests come to exploit the almajiri for personal, social or political ends.
The report noted that “the circumstances under which these children live continue to respond to certain push and pull factors” that draw them towards criminal activities which “threaten the society as a whole.”
There are allegations that some of the Mallams who coordinate the almajiri are increasingly turning the practice into money spinning ventures in processes that expose the children to greater danger while some of the mallams are suspected to prepare and indoctrinate them making them useful tools for terrorists.
An abused system
The mallams also abuse the children through corporal punishment that includes vicious flogging and starvation which on some occasions forced the children out of the Quranic shield, with some of them leaving behind their chosen lifestyles to form violent cells which some of the children lead after, running away from the Quranic schools to live sovereign lives as children. The report said almajiri also fall victim to ritualists who kill them for money or for other purposes, adding that “most of them develop into hard-hearted individuals who are ready to vent their anger and frustrations on the society”
The Executive Director, CHRICED, Mallam Ibrahim Zikirillahi recalled an experience on his way from Abuja to Kano. It was around midnight. He saw a boy barely seven years in the thick of the darkness walking alone towards Kano. Zikirullahi and his team stopped their car to engage the little boy who said he started his journey from Abuja on foot and had spent three days on the road without food or water. “The child was returning home frustrated from living in Abuja as almajiri. We took him in the car to Kano and handed him over to the police”, Zikirullahi told our correspondent in Abuja. He said the almajiri system faces serious social and health threats that may ruin the future of young people in the face of any pandemic.
The CHRICED report identified other challenges facing by Almajiri to include ‘food insecurity, poor clothing, poor shelter, lack of care, love and affection, physical exploitation” with the children used as providers of cheap labour, “sexual exploitation and vicious temptations.” Experts think these challenges will be compounded in the face of the global pandemic. Apart from the Covid-19 fear, there are concerns about the link between almajiri, violence and banditry in the core northern states
Zikirillahi said when allowed to grow with or without very limited care and control, many almajiri end up as deviants and even criminals. “They are known to be thieves, swindlers, armed robbers, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, drug peddlers, muggers and with a wide assortment of anti-social activities.”
His report noted that many of them have no access to Western education and almost always end up doing manual jobs with low income. “Though many have high aspirations, but are limited by circumstances.”
Living on threshed hopes
It is not all tales of woes. Some almajiri have used the opportunity to achieve stardom, rising from grass to grace. A lawyer with the Ministry of Justice, Adamawa State, who identified himself as coming from this forlorn background said, “I’m proud to be almajiri. Many of us are important people today because of the almajiri system.” But that is perhaps one out of many.
However, the CHRICED report noted that things have “degenerated from a system that protects and educate young children into adulthood to become a tool for money making for the mallams. It is also a well-known fact that in some cases the almajiri are required to give a fixed amount on daily basis, feed and clothe themselves, so they have to always roam about in motor parks, house to house, the streets and other public places, begging for money just to escape punishment from the mallams which pushes many of them to violent crimes. For instance, with some 5,000 almajiri in the care of a mallam, based on a weekly return of N200 per week turns into about N48 million in one month, the more reason beneficiaries of the system continue to defend the practice in spite of its deficiencies.
A competent security source told our correspondent in Kano that apart from being a social pool for the recruitment of terrorist groups, the involvement of almajiri in violent crimes is becoming more pronounced especially in the context of the social upheavals in some northern states. He said some mallams have been identified to provide human and material support for violent extremists. He said the recent calls for reform by a section of northern leaders was informed by personal safety rather than the needs of the poor.
Over the centuries, the followers of the system have deviated from the original idea and practice, said Dr Umar. He regretted that some of the children sent to the almajiri school for learning end up becoming social misfits.
He identified lack of parental care, constant flogging during the lessons and abuse by people in the wider society as potential factors that spur violent cells emerging from almajiri. His research stated, “It is no wonder therefore that these children are transformed into aggressive and violent young adults, who do not hesitate to extend their anger to the larger society.” The report found that some of them engage in the “use of dangerous drugs, alcohol, narcotics, cigarette smoking, engaging with prostitutes, gambling and even causing road accidents in order to rob victims.” A case was mentioned where a boy used a knife to rape other boys and also rob them. Zikirullahi said reform of the almajiri system is imperative considering the various threats to its practice. The almajiri has continued to catch the attention of local and international community. In northern states, some United Nations agencies and Non-Government Organisations, (NGOS) led by CHRICED have made efforts to intervene.
The federal government’s intervention was the Almajiri Education programme launched in 2012 by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. About 165 almajiri schools were built to integrate Islamic and Western education. Also, in Kano, the state government’s introduction of the free feeding programme has helped while allowances are being paid to some mallams. But these efforts have not removed the social and material conditions that gave rise to the practice in the first place.
Suraju said only an overhaul of the political, legal and economic system which at present diminishes economic and social opportunities will put an end to the almajiri system and all its associated dangers. He calls for free and compulsory primary education, social and health security for all. Last week, his group sent a letter to President Buhair, asking him to initiate the legal framework for Social Security for all Nigerians including the almajiri. He said this has become more imperative with the Covid-19 menace.
Little Ahmad appears to have summarised the phenomenon when he said in Hausa that if the system continues to make the almajiri hopeless, restless and sleepless, the operators of the system will soon realise they too will not be able to sleep nor rest.