KATSINA, NIGERIA: It was a cold, breezy morning in April 2023 when Ma’aru Ishak, 15, embarked on what he called his longest adventure. The journey took about 40 km from his village, Gidan Mashi, in the Mashi Local Government, Katsina State, to Mallam Muhammad Ahmed’s Tsangaya school in the same state.
“I slept and slept over and over again, but each time I asked my father, he’d say we’re not even halfway,” he recounted. Upon getting to the Tsangaya school, the facility Ma’aru was lodged in was inhabited by over a 100 other almajiris.
Almajiri (plural of Almajirai) is an emigrant who spends a specific amount of time outside of his birthplace in search of Islamic knowledge. Originally, the Almajiri-Tsangaya school system was well funded by both state authorities and citizens, with students well taken care of and focused on their Islamic education.
Today, the current system in Nigeria lacks significant state funding, which has contributed to the impoverishment of the Almajiris, turning them into street beggars and security threats. Muhammad Iliasu, an economic analyst, noted that studies have proven the strong relationship between high unemployment rates and crime rates.
Muhammad
“Nothing streamlines healthy thinking more than productivity, and an unemployed person is unproductive. That’s usually where cases of pickpocketing, burglary, thievery, robbery, thug war, gang war, etc. come from,” Iliasu said.
Studies also show that the abundance of almajiris and their movement in northern Nigeria have made it easier for many of them to engage in urban crimes such as drug addiction and street pickpocketing. This not only contributes to serious security threats but also exposes young children to poor economic prospects.
“Almajiranci is a system we mustn’t let down. It’s what gave birth to us and made us what we are today. We must uphold it,” Mallam Muhammad Ahmed, the Tsangaya head, told The SolutionsPaper.
The Mobile Vocational School for Almajiris
In 2024, Basheer Suleiman and Mustapha Shehu established Save Humanity, a mobile vocational school to help Almajiris and those from less privileged households develop skills for economic sustainability for free.
The day that the organization came to Mallam Ahmed’s Tsangaya, Ma’aru had gone into the neighborhood to find a staple. By the time he came back, there was a crowd in front of the Tsangaya school. Curious to know, his friend Nazifi Sabi’u, told him the organization wanted them to teach them skills so they would stop begging.
Excited at the news, Ma’aru learned about phone repairs and graduated from the course in December last year. “I’ve always wanted to learn something that I’ll be doing to get an income. I hate being idle,” Maáru said. He has since then connected with one Umar Ashiru, a phone repairer in a neighborhood close to his Tsangaya, to improve his skills. “[If I work] I get ₦500 and up to ₦1000,” he remarked.
The tutors visit the Tsangaya schools twice a week, on Thursdays and Fridays and coach almajiris on mobile phone repairs, leather works and satellite dish installation for three months using the framework of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for training individuals who have no formal education, making the program easier to learn for the children.
In Case You Missed It
In Kano, a Group of Friends are Responding to Community Needs
The Bagwai Youth Friendship Association is a community group that pools money together to support locals in need, whether it be paying school fees or providing start-up capital for a new business venture. Since 2019, the group has enrolled 35 children in school, repaired broken water pipes, renovated buildings and provided food to those in need.
The Cobra effect and other challenges
In 2024, Save Humanity trained 138 almajiris in Katsina state on mobile phone repairs, leather works and satellite dish installation. However, the goal was to train ten thousand almajiris in 2024 alone. “We do everything alone. It’s not easy. Everything requires money: the learning and training materials, the tutors,” Suleiman, director of Save Humanity said.
They are also faced with managing the tutors for the Almajiris as they tend to be inconsistent with the training schedule. Not long after Mustapha Rabi’u commenced his leatherwork training, his favorite tutor, Ahmad Hassan, was absent for two weeks.
“He told us that in the first week he was absent; he was in the hospital nursing his ill sister, and in the second one he was at his workplace working tirelessly to make a living,” the 12-year-old boy recounted.
In his defense, Ahmad Hassan told The SolutionsPaper that “I only accepted this role to give back to the (Almajiranci) system that once bred me, but truthfully not for the incentive I’ll be given. The people sponsoring the program are elders to me; I can do it even for free. But for the days I was absent, I had a patient under admission in the hospital; I must work to pay for the bills.”
While this initiative is beneficial to these pupils, some parents and community leaders believe Save Humanity would distract the Almajiris from focusing on gaming islamic knowledge. “As an Almajiri, you shouldn’t ever think about doing something for monetary gain, do your reading and any other task your mallam assigns you to do. When it’s time for food, go into the neighborhood and look [beg],” Mallam Audu, an Islamic cleric commented.
Mr. Iliasu also noted that while Save Humanity has the potential to add value, it needs to be studied carefully in order to not make the Almajiranci practice even more attractive.
“Initiatives like this depend on how they’re implemented. Economic analysis is very sensitive to the Cobra effect. Very recently, Kano State aimed to take homeless children off the streets, only to realize more children are leaving the house to enjoy the government initiative,” he said.
Credits
Editing: Adebola Makinde
Abdulaziz Bagwai is a registered health practitioner and development journalist. He covers and reports on how individuals, communities, and organizations respond to societal challenges locally and innovatively.
