THERE IS A BILL on the floor of the House of Representatives that seeks to establish yet another bureaucratic agency to administer education in Nigeria. The full title of the Bill is, Bill for an Act to Establish the National Commission for Almajiri Education and out of School Children to Provide for a Multimodal System of Education to tackle the Menace of Illiteracy, Develop Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Programmes, Prevent Youth Poverty, Delinquency and Destitution in Nigeria; and for Related Matters. The Bill successfully passed through 2nd Reading on 22 November 2022.
Dr. Shehu Balarabe Kakale (PDP), who represents the Dange/Shuni/Bodinga/Tureta Federal Constituency in Sokoto State, is the author of the Bill. He was supported by 18 other Members of the House of Representatives.
Just
before the scheduled Public Hearing on the Bill on 28 March 2023, a group came
out to publicly express its support for the passage of the Bill into law while
another group demonstrated against its passage. The first group is the National Youth Council of Nigeria
(NYCN), which urged the leadership of the National Assembly to hasten the
passage of the Bill on March 26, 2023 in Sokoto. The groups also advised the 36 Nigerian States
to all consider domesticating the Bill so as to improve the lot of Almajiris in the country,
The second group is the Civil Society Coalition for Transparency and Good Governance (CSCTGG). This group asserted that it will amount to a duplication of functions and a waste of scarce resources to establish another education commission in the country. It argued that existing agencies like the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education are adequately empowered to carry out the functions listed in the proposed Bill for the new Commission. The group also seized the opportunity to remind our federal legislators that there are 157 underutilized Almajiri Schools spread across the 19 Northern States that were built by President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to cater, specifically, to the unique needs of Almajiris. The group, therefore, urged our federal lawmakers to reject the Bill. I would like to add here that there is also in existence a National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS), which claims to have over 5,000 staff that only organize examinations but gulps over N8 Billion of federal funds annually according to their approved 2022 Budget.
Dr. Mohammed Ali, the Executive Director of the Centre for Human Resource Development and Empowerment Initiative (HRDEI) recently declared that the North does not need an Almajiri Education Commission. He said rather, the Almajiri System should be banned in Nigeria. His reasons are that the system is outmoded, has lost its original glory and the Almajiris are no open to exploitation. He added that its begging component contravenes the teachings of Islam.
The
Almajiri Education Bill is reminiscent
of the Grazing Reserve Bill that was
introduced to the 6th and 7th Senates by Senator Zainab
Kure. The Bill suffered defeat on both occasions. The Almajiri Education Bill harbours subliminal messages in it just
like the Grazing Reserve Bill.
Other
Nigerians view the new Bill as another attempt to elevate the status of one
religion above the others in the country. The legislators who voted in favour
of the Bill during its First and Second Readings are hereby advised to have a
rethink and to consult widely. The purpose of this review is to throw more
light on the Bill and to create greater awareness of its import.
Senator
Kure’s Grazing Reserve Bill in 2016 clearly
had ulterior motives. The Bill’s proposed Grazing Commission was going to have enormous
powers to acquire land in every State of the Federation for a particular tribe,
a particular trade and in support of a particular lifestyle at federal expense,
with no benefit to other Nigerians. Federal lawmakers read the Bill accurately
and rejected it. In confirmation of the suspicions of Nigerians, shortly after
the Bill was defeated, others that sought to achieve similar objectives were
introduced in rapid succession. These were the RUGA Bill, the Cattle Colony
Bill, the Water Bill and the current controversial National Livestock
Transformation Plan (NLTP).
The Federal Government currently has about 650 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that have made our Government very large and governance very expensive. Reduction of the number of these MDAs is what Nigeria needs, as recommended 10 years ago by the Oronsaye Committee, is a reduction of these and not the creation of new ones. Moreover, the Federal Government is over-borrowed and currently applying 92% of its revenues on debt servicing according to the latrest IMF report.
What is the Almajiri System is all about? Amb. Bukar Al-Amin, the head of Nigeria’s Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) presented a well-written paper on the subject at
the Women-In-Da’awah’s 14th Annual National Conference in Kaduna on June
22, 2019. He said Almajiri is a word derived from the Arabic
Almuhajir’, which translates to ‘migrant’. The Almajiri is someone who has left his home to pursue Quranic
knowledge elsewhere. This is a centuries-old practice that inculcated Islamic
principles, values, jurisprudence and Quranic memorization abilities in its
students in learning centres called Tsangaya.
The migrant students were funded by the state treasury while they gave back to
society by way of providing of menial services such as laundry, cobbling,
gardening, and weaving. Some of the labour used in farming and building the
famous Kano Groundnut pyramids, in the Kano leatherworks, in cap making in Zaria
and in the tin mines of Jos, was supplied by Almajiris. The system also produced early teachers of Sharia jurisprudence and judges of Sharia Courts. It provided
personnel who could read and write using ajamy
to the British colonialists in Northern Nigeria. The British later stopped recognizing
them as educated persons after Western education caught on. The Almajiri system
has thus suffered losses and fallen into disrepute. UNICEF estimates that
Nigeria currently has about 19.2 million out of school. About two-thirds of
this figure is found in the 19 Northern States alone and about 6.2 million of
these are attributable to the outmoded Almajiri
system.
Today’s Almajiris are riff-raffs who are found roaming the streets in gangs
with bowls in their hands begging for free food. Many of them are not even enrolled
in any Tsangaya. Bukar Al-Amin
concluded that today’s Almajiris are
a societal burden that are giving Islam a bad name and recommended the
syestem’s outright ban.
It is, therefore, recommended that States that have an Almajiri problem should handle it at State level. Four years ago, Northern Nigerian Governors agreed to ban the Almajiri system. They, therefore, relocated Amajiris in their States back to their States of origin. Governor Ganduje of Kano State recently announced that many of today’s Almajiris are not even Nigerians but abandoned and run-away children from our neighbouring countries. The 12 Northern States that have adopted the Sharia legal system should incorporate Almajiri care in their programs.
If President Jonathan’s excellent decision
to build 157 special Almajiri schools
to teach both Islamic and Western education did not address the Almajiri problem, an Almajiri Education Commission will not
either. The FG’s paltry 6% budget allocation to Education, which is far below
the UN’s recommended 15% threshold, should not be diverted to yet another
pointless bureaucratic agency. Given all theses reasons, our federal lawmakers
are hereby urged to rethink their earlier decision and not pass the Bill into
law.
By Rev. James G. Pam, jamespam2004@gmail.com, April 24, 2023
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