They have no place to stay, live on scraps of food, they have no sanitation facilities and they are regarded as lowlifes by many in the community – and now heavy downpours in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, have made the lives of almajiri children even harder.
Under the almajiri system, parents send their children, mostly boys aged four to 12, to distant places to acquire Qur’anic education. Many rural and poor families who cannot afford formal schooling have made this choice.
Although parents might believe they are fulfilling their obligation to provide a religious and moral education to their children and that the learning is provided free of charge, almajiri children are often forced by their teachers, called Mallams, to beg in the streets to fund their education, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
The almajiri system is highly controversial and has been attacked for promoting youth poverty and delinquency.
In November 2020, Babagana Umara Zulum, the governor of Borno State, appointed a committee to look into the reform of the almajri school system. It was mandated to come up with an action plan that could be applied to end street begging and the abuse of children through the almajiri system, known as tsangaya.
Zulum suggested the possibility of leverging the federal government’s Vocational Education Framework by collaborating with the National Board for Technical Education to align with his administration’s efforts to streamline formal and informal education which would enable eligible graduates of the tsangaya system to qualify for access to higher education institutions.
However, little seems to have changed for the almajiri children who are still treated as outcasts who spend much of their time roaming the streets, begging for money and food.
RNI reporter Ummi Fatima Baba Kyari spoke to Muhammad Bashir Mustapha, a teacher at the Bamallam Massa Bintuye tsangaya school, who said almajiri children suffered badly, especially during the rainy season because they mostly did not have a place to stay.
He said the school had a room where pupils could stay but that it did not have a proper floor – just sand.
“They have a toilet where they can urinate and take their bath but they can’t defecate because the plumbing no longer works. There are about 107 pupils. Some of them who come from far away or from neighbouring villages have no other place to stay. Those who live in the state stay with their families.”
A pupil, Mustapha Usman Yajiwa, said that in the wet season they hardly slept.
“We don’t sleep much because the space provided is too small. If the rain is heavy, it floods the room and we have to go to look for some other place to shelter.”
Another pupil, Muhammed Bukar, said: “We really suffer because we don’t have a place to sleep at night. Sometimes we older ones have to hustle to get money to pay for a room so that the younger ones will have a place to stay. All of us, but especially the younger ones, cover ourselves with mats. We stay awake until the rain stops. We have heard about the proposed reforms but nothing has changed. We pray that the government will help us.”
UMMI FATIMA BABA KYARI
