Nigeria’s poverty rate is estimated by the World Bank to have reached 38.9 percent in 2023, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians living below the poverty line. Here’s how a group of friends are responding to financial difficulties in Bagwai, Kano State.
KANO, NIGERIA: Aisha Mustapha, 45, was devastated after the death of her husband, Mallam Salisu in 2021. Top on her mind was the survival and educational needs of her four children. Worried about their future, she sent her first daughter, Rahama, 21, to go live with her aunt, at Limawa, a neighborhood in Bagwai Local Government, and convinced her uncle to sponsor her first son, Abba, 17, a JSS 2 student.
Left with only her two younger children, Abdussamad, 14, and Fati, 11, who were in primary three and two respectively, Aisha still found it difficult to afford their tuition fees. Nigeria’s poverty rate is estimated by the World Bank to have reached 38.9 percent in 2023, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.
This led Aisha’s neighbor, Musa Umar, who is a member of the Bagwai Youth Friendship Association (BYFA) to share her story during one of the association’s meetings in July 2022. After some consideration by the members of the association, they decided that Abdussamad’s fees should be paid by the association, and he was subsequently enrolled at Abubakar Janwuro Memorial Islamiyya School in Bagwai for his basic Islamic studies.
“I felt immense happiness in having my son, Abdussamad, enrolled in Islamic school; I now have only his terminal fees to pay at the primary school, which is very affordable compared to the Islamic schools,” Aisha told The SolutionsPaper.
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The Bagwai Youth Friendship Association
The BYFA was originally set up in 2014 to benefit its 32 members only. Its founder, Abdulsalam Abubakar, 27, came home to Bagwai, Kano state, for a school holiday in July 2014, famished and without money and was only saved by the intervention of two friends who fed him.
This inspired him to start a friendship group among his friends in Bagwai to help members in need and avoid the kind of situation he found himself in 2014. The association has since supported the studies of five of their members at Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, Kano, three at the Federal College of Education Kano, and provided business capital for five other members.
Sulaiman Ubaidullah, 28, dropped out of the Federal College of Education Bichi in 2020, after the death of his father, BYFA members began pooling money in 2021 and paid his fees until he graduated in 2022.
“My parents and I started the struggle, but the monetary demands for my upkeep and school activities became unaffordable when my father, who was the main pillar, died. So I decided to defer my admission and focus on my small perfume business, but a year later, my BYFA friends notified me that everything was set for me to resume my studies,” Ubaidullah said.
In 2019, BYFA began supporting other residents of Bagwai who were not members of the BYFA. The members agreed it was time they started giving back to the community. Since then, the association has enrolled 35 children in primary and Islamic schools, repaired broken water pipes, provided food to households in need and renovated collapsed buildings in the Bagwai community.
“When my association [BYFA] gave me the capital to start a small business in 2017, I had no idea God would bless it this much. I took it and left for Ibadan, where I sold perfumes before later purchasing and switching to Okada. I’ve built my own house and have been the one taking the largest responsibility for my family,” Abdulkarim Isyaku, one of BYFA beneficiaries said.
The association meets every Friday to discuss issues affecting their members and community. Elections are conducted every two years to elect the president of the association, secretary and other executive members.
“They called us names”
In the early days of BYFA, members were frequently labeled proud and antisocial due to the closed nature of the group. “I was always shy passing through the street that led to my home after our weekly meeting. The people I pass by are mostly those who call us names, because they knew where I was coming from,” Abdulsalam Abubakar, BYFA founder told The SolutionsPaper.
This silent harassment lasted for years and only gradually ceased after the group began supporting non-members in the community.
Fundraising is also a challenge for the group as members are mostly young students and early-career business owners. The group has had to postpone some of its planned community projects due to insufficient contribution from members.
“All our donations come from our members, due to this factor, we are always open to new members who share similar interests with us and can contribute to the betterment of our communities,” Ibrahim Alhassan, secretary of BYFA noted.
In the coming years, the group is aiming to build additional classes for the Islamic and formal education schools and construct new schools to offer free education to the less privileged in Bagwai.
But for now they are focused on increasing its membership and supporting more Bagwai students up to the tertiary level.
Credits
Editing: Precious Ewuji, Chinonso Kenneth
Abdulaziz Bagwai is a registered community health practitioner, a creative writer, and an early-career multimedia journalist. His writings have appeared and are forthcoming in different local and international publications.