Your excellencies, I heartily acknowledge your doggedness and uncommon perseverance as you grip enormous challenges of governance, wishing you Allah’s guidance.
I am enthusiastic getting in touch with you through this forum because you will not be accessible to me in person to lodge my complaints. As a Nigerian, democracy has conferred on me freedom of expression to explore crucial areas for development partnership. I particularly see you as the only bulwark of the almajiri for his development project which has been sabotaged over time.
Sharing my agonising experiences is the core message of this memo. It is not just to evoke sympathy but also spur your political will into action to liberate me from prolonged class persecution. For long, I have been a subject for recurring discussions and even researches owing to my pathetic living which spells doom for my future. While I have been rendered the wretched of the country, my socioeconomic potentialities have also been devastated.
Whenever I look around, I cannot see love and care but frustrations and degradation. You know that my honour has been attacked; my hopes and dreams have been looted. You can’t pretend that I am not depressed by anger, the product of hunger. My innocence is real but made to look fraudulent and unattended. Even during daytime, the only thing I could see is absolute darkness.
My parents as the primary culprits, the government and the larger society have forsaken me like an abandoned property. I am left alone to survive in this turbulent world. Recall that I am not the architect of my trauma. I, therefore, implore you to let me pass for a human being. Even Karl Marx once protested for me, “If a human being is formed by his/her circumstances, then his/her circumstances must be made human”.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Charter on Rights of the Child both define a child as any one below the age of 18 years. Nigeria is a party to that convention and agreed to its various articles. Article 27 of that UN Convention recognises the right of the child to a standard of living for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual and social development. Article 24 states that no child should be deprived of the right to health care services.
Article 28 mandates the state to make primary education compulsory and available to all. The term compulsory here denotes taking measures to ensure that no child should be left without primary education. Article 31 insists that the child must have rest and leisure. As a child, it is, therefore, your duty to mitigate the cementing of these stolen rights of the almajiri.
I am the only naive Nigerian kid without accessibility to health care services. My ailments are mysteriously treated or resigning to fate despite living in the republic of ‘wardrobe allowances’. The almajiri is not enrolled into primary school education system to learn basic skills to prepare him for future economic life. The almajiri does not know rest and leisure. From morning to night, he is hustling to make ends meet, begging for food and alms. He does not know how to play games to boost his physical being. Even the little time he has for Qur’anic studies is inadequate for him after rigorous walking.
According to the United Nations Human Development Index, countries are measured in accordance with their economic prosperity, respect for human right and quality of the lives of their citizens. However, almajiri’s economy is empty, his right to dignity has been damaged and the quality of his living is in a shambles. Thus, ensure my elevation to the mainstream society where my talents will be tapped fully.
Malala Yousafzai’s emphatic assertion is, “Let us remember that one book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world”. Are you not interested in changing the world through me? In fact, her mentioning of one child changing the world calls for sober reflections. According to the Council for the Welfare of the Destitute ( NCWD), we are estimated at more than seven million in population. This nation of uncared Almajiri is plundered without changing the world. What a pity!
For now, the almajiri child is not thinking of how to change the very world that is hostile to him. His thinking begins and ends with how to empower his stomach in the midst of economic empowerment of the youths and women. The pen he is supposed to use is no longer his priority. It would dishearten Malala that the potentialities of millions of almajirai are not flowered in Northern Nigeria.
Your excellencies, the pathetic condition of the Almajiri deserves your passionate attention, for you have the authority plus resources of deciminating my predicament. Napoleon Hill submitted that, ” If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way”. Now, you have the opportunity to make the small Almajiri great.
For your reference, Yunusa Zakari Yau and Festus Okoye conducted a research on the topic: ‘The Condition of ALMAJIRAI in the North West Zone of Nigeria’. The findings of the research were published in 1999. It is imperative here to catch a glimpse of their recommendations for transforming the almajiri. One, government should see reform as a means of addressing specific urban social problem such as bara ( begging) and juvenile delinquency as well as a means of meeting educational needs of the citizens.
Two, government should intervene through assistance and regulatory framework. Three, government should carry out public enlightenment program to explain the rational of intervention. Four, government should enact appropriate legislation and set up effective machinery for their enforcement, to protect children from child labour and other forms of exploitations. Of course, there are other possible and practical suggestions to these.
Lest I forget. I remain grateful to my true friends for identifying with my miserable life. One is a filmaker from Lagos, Adeyeye Olatokunbo, who produced a documentary entitled: ” Born Unlucky: The Almajiri System”. Mr. Olatokunbo spent just a year in Kano as a youth corps member and was moved by the dehumanised condition of Almajiri. The others are Messrs Toka McBaror and Smart Conrad, the director and writer respectively of another movie entitled: The Almajiri. These are indeed, friends in need.
Finally, I solicit the reconstruction of my life to ameliorate my tribulations. I beseech your emotional intervention to move my life forward. Don’t forget that I am ambitious like every human being. Would you like to be remembered among those who will squander my ambition?
Abdullahi writes from
Ringim, Jigawa state via
07036207998
