By Fola James
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, has for some time been at the forefront of the elimination of the Almajari system in the northern part of Nigeria.
Apart from speaking against the social vices that makes children to beg for daily survival, the state’s helmsman has ensured that legislation are enacted to curtail the menace, including a two year jail term for parents who allowed their wards to engage in begging and N100, 000 fine for any Islamic teacher who accept the children into his custody.
His government has also sent back hundreds of Almajarai back to their home states in the last few months.
But after what seemed like a solo effort on the part of the governor, the Northern Governors’ Forum recently threw their weight behind the war against the almajiris system.
The latest support has now come from the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF a northern social political body, which said the abolition of the system was long overdue.
ACF said it supports the recent decision to repatriate almajirai back to their states, but warned that northern governors against allowing the action to cause dispute among them.
The group said the system which allows children to fend for themselves is retrogressive and slavery in another form.
According to Emmanuel Yawe, the National Publicly Secretary of the ACF, leaders in the north should transform the abandoned children to useful citizens of the society.
We support any decision that would transform the stranded children to responsible citizens the group said
ACF said “the decision to repatriate Almajiris to their states was taken by the Northern Governors Forum and we have no quarrel with that because we don’t believe in the Mmajirinci system.
It’s a retrogressive system. We don’t believe in it at all. Its against the human development of the North and the development of the country. So, the ACF is against the Almajiranci system.
The throws it weight on efforts by NGF to eliminate the system once and for all, adding that northern governors should go beyond mere rhetoric to find a lasting solution.
It says “So, the decision of the governors to take them to their states of origin and the state to find their families, we totally agree with it. This is because if somebody has given birth to a child, he should be in the position to look after that child and not to throw the child onto the streets.
We support that decision. But the only problem is with the implementation. The implementation is very clumsy and the governors should sit up and implement in a proper way.”
“The Governors are implementing it harphazardly. It is not properly implemented. You can’t just carry the Almajiri in your state and without proper coordination with another state and go and drop them in another state and go away.”
It said the repatriation of almajirai back to their state of origin should not be allowed to cause rancor among governors from the region.
“If one state is taking them to another state, the state should be alerted accordingly so that the state should make proper arrangement to welcome and trace their parents and take them back to their parents(families).” he said. “The Northern Governors should sit up and implement the policy properly, without leading to any form of rancour and misunderstanding among the states,” ACF said.
