A study by the
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) put the number of out-of-school
children in Nigeria to 13.5 million – as of 2018. An unimpressive mass of this
number comes from Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, and
other northern states.
In December 2019,
Jigawa state government announced it would open a bidding process for the
construction of 95 mosques across the state. This is a state with over 800,000
out-of-school children,
According to a
survey by the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN), there are
more than 800,000 out-of-school children between the age of three and 18 in
Jigawa.
In Kano, there are
about one million out-of-school children in the state. This is according to
Peter Hawkins, the UNICEF representative to Nigeria, who disclosed this at a
four-day workshop organised for commissioners and permanent secretaries from
the 19 northern states in August 2019.
In Katsina, there
are approximately one million out-of-school children. Though, Aminu Masari, the
governor of the state, put the number at 996,000. Ditto Zamfara.
In addition, reports
by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency ( NDLEA) reveal that the north-west
region has the highest number of drug-related arrests in years, with 2,205
arrests in 2015 alone. A motion on drug abuse in the north adopted by the
senate in 2017 disclosed that three million bottles of codeine were consumed by
drug abusers daily in Kano and Jigawa.
Also, Mojisola
Adeyeye, director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug
Administration and Control (NAFDAC), revealed that 70 percent of the youth
essentially, the young boys, abuse illicit drugs in Kano.
When you put all
these numbers together what you have is chaos, banditry and kidnapping.
In June, 2019, the
federal government said it was considering proscribing the Al-majiri system of
education in order to tackle insecurity.
Babagana Monguno,
national security adviser, who disclosed this at the end of the national
executive council meeting in Abuja, said the ban is to ensure that no child is
deprived of basic education.
He said Almajiris
were becoming a prodigious problem to society, and that many of them end up
becoming “criminals, drug addicts and willing tools in the hands of those who
have very dangerous intentions’’.
But what happened
when the government revealed its intention to ban this atrocious system? There
was a piercing outcry from the north that it was an attempt at a religious
ordinance they hold dear.
Afterwards, the
government buckled under pressure and announced it was no longer going ahead
with the plan. Yet the situation remains the same. But who does the current
regime of child illiteracy and ignorance in the north benefit? The northern
elite.
The only pragmatic
reason I can advance on why northern leaders do not consider it as an emergency
to end the Al-majiri system and to commence mass education of their young
population is politics. They are comfortable with the status quo as long as
they get power. It is to their advantage presiding over an uneducated
population who can be manipulated and deployed for political ends.
Muhammad Sanusi II,
the gadfly emir of Kano, whom I regard as the John the Baptist of the north for
his vociferous condemnation of this disequilibrious status quo, is alone in his
advocacy against irresponsible polygamy, Al-majiri and child marriage –
practices the northern elite espouse.
The emir himself had
complained about the northern elite whom he said wanted to silence him for
speaking the truth about the region.
‘’Our colleagues and
compatriots among the elite do not like statistics. Numbers are disturbing. I
recently gave a speech in which I said the north-east and North-west of Nigeria
are the poorest parts of the country. This simple statement of fact has
generated so much heat; the noise has yet to die down.The response to this
speech has been a barrage of personal attacks and insults aimed at silencing
any voices that dare shine the light on the society to which we are saying
Bring Back our Girls,’’ he said at a lecture held to commemorate the Chibok
girls abduction.
Who will bell the
cat? Why is there no sense of urgency on the part of the northern elite? Why is
there no alarm? Why the deafening silence? What are they doing to seminally
address the remote causes of banditry by their youth?
Now that banditry
and kidnapping, brought on by the purposive disempowerment of the young
population of the north by the elite, is threatening the peace and security of
every Nigerian, I suggest, northern leaders run the gauntlet. They cannot wish
this away. Now is not the time for politics and pandering to sensitivities. Now
is the time they tell themselves the truth; they created this Frankenstein.
Fredrick Nwabufo is
a writer and journalist.
@FredrickNwabufo
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