COVID-19 has indeed changed the narrative on virtually every facade of human existence. However, this change fever seems not to have been caught by some people, particularly the Almajirai. OUR CORRESPONDENT was able to capture their current condition of living under the global pandemic.
“Coronavirus is nothing to me. I even have local herbs that can cure it. You just rub it in your hands and inhale it and everything is alright,” these were the words of Mallam Usman (Real name withheld), an Islamic teacher with over 120 students under his tutelage in Dutse Alhaji of the Federal Capital Territory.
Usman who took great pride in his knowledge of herbs which he said he inherited from his father, who in turn inherited same from his forefathers, claimed that none of his students or household members could ever get infected as his herbal package was capable of taking care of any anomaly.
The Islamic teacher narrated how some of his students were given spoilt food to eat while begging for alms and had only come back vomiting, rather than being poisoned. “I gave them the herbs and they were okay,” he added with smiles.
Apart from the fact that he believes he has in his hands the herbs that could cure coronavirus, Usman also believes in the conspiracy theory that the pandemic was merely a decoy used by many leaders in the country to amass wealth for themselves.
“Believe it or not, it was just as the case of HIV/AIDS virus that was reported years back. This is just the same. People are using it to fill their pockets,” he stated, patting the waist pocket of the cream-coloured kaftan he was wearing.
A native of Borno State, Mallam Usman disclosed that he had opened the Quranic School years back, for students who wanted to acquire Islamic knowledge, and revealed further that after their graduation, they were sent to learn vocational skills like tailoring and mechanical works, while some were registered in primary and secondary schools.
However, before graduation, Usman’s students like other Almajiris, went out every day in search of food. Even with the lockdown in the FCT, the students still prowled around the Dutse area in search of what to eat.
“I do not like them moving around. I have two buses which we were using then to move around, but the two buses have broken down. So, the children now move around. There is nothing we can do,” he said.
Usman, however, added that some well-meaning Nigerians have continually provided food for them even before the outbreak of the coronavirus and the lockdown.
Social distancing, as far as Usman and his household were concerned, is not feasible as they all managed to fit into the eight room apartment that served as their home and the Quranic school.
And concerning sanitary hygiene which basically involves the washing of hands and use of sanitizers, Usman and his household didn’t consider it necessary as they felt it would amount to waste of water to frequently wash their hands.
“Not when we suffer to fetch water, we will be wasting it in the name of frequent washing of hands,” one of the students stated as he unlocked the padlock of the little cage that housed the jerrycans of water that were stored.
“The cage is locked to avoid wastage,” he had also revealed.
For their bath, the children went to a nearby river to clean up, and they continued with their quotidian life without sparing any thought for social distancing.
This, in fact, can be said to be attributable to the recent discovery of 16 coronavirus-infected Almajirai, out of the lot that were deported to Kaduna from Kano. They have no orientation about the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and why it should be dreaded, and so life remained the same for them as they moved around without adhering to any sanitary hygiene or social distancing.
While Usman and his students were lucky to have been getting aid from well-meaning Nigerians, the case of Adamu, an Almajiri that resides in Guidna, a suburb in the FCT, is different. Adamu and his fellow students daily left the house of their Mallam, and trekked a long distance to Kubwa, in search of food.
Adamu revealed that often times, they were lucky to get raw foodstuffs from their sympathizers, which they took home to cook and share among themselves.
“We were given rice and beans today,” he said as he displayed the foodstuffs he was holding in a black nylon bag. “We will go to the pepper seller under the mango tree, and plead with her to give us pepper and onions to cook the food.”
Adamu and his group, revealed that even with the lockdown, their routine had not changed. The group which comprised of boys of age eight to twelve years, disclosed that they knew nothing about coronavirus, but that they had noticed that the streets were isolated and that many of the people they had met on the streets were wearing masks.
They however revealed that getting food to eat now was somewhat difficult as many people have been confined to their homes because of the lockdown.
“We have to go to people’s houses now to beg. Before this thing that is happening now, we could easily get food from the people we meet on the street and market places. But now, it is much more difficult,” he said as he adjusted the rope with which he tied the cover of his plate to the plate itself.
The Almajiri system of learning is a type of Islamic education that is commonly practiced in Northern Nigeria, and the term “Almajiri” is used to describe a young boy who is taught within this system. The children leave their parents and homes, and travel to other northern states to live with their Islamic teachers.
Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets. A 2014 UNICEF report estimated that there are 9.5 million Almajiri children in Nigeria. With the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe, these children are vulnerable and can easily catch and spread the virus as they are clearly bereft of knowledge on how to stay safe from the pandemic.
Among the many Nigerians who are calling for government’s intervention on the issue of the safety of Almajirai at this crucial time is Mohammed Keana, the team lead Almajiri Child Rights Initiative (ACRI).
Keana who described the situation of the Almajirai as sad, stated that interventions by government to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians during this lockdown did not get across to this set of children who are already living in terrible conditions, especially as it pertains to their sanitary hygiene, feeding, and all-round living.
“My experience with the Almajiri children is that of despair. Under the lockdown, we are not allowed to go out. These children, with the system they are in, cannot survive. They have to beg everyday before they eat. With the lockdown, they won’t find something to eat.
“Even when they can sneak out, finding someone to give them alms in the street is difficult. It is a sad situation. It is high time the government took a definite response plan to the plight of these children,” he said.
The Almajiris’ rights activist also added that they had sent letters to Northern governors to either relocate the children to their communities or make provision for their feeding.
“We have worked with the Kaduna State government to relocate 26,000 of such children. I am also calling on well-meaning Nigerians to help too. They are innocent children who are victims of the irresponsibility of their parents and the government.
“We should be able to reach out to them within the communities. I support the state governments who have started the deportation because apart from the issue of coronavirus spreading, we will have the issue of death and malnutrition in our hands if nothing is done,” he added.
For days now, there have been news of deportation of Almajirai to their various states of origin, across the federation. Kano government was said to have deported 419 Almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. Kebbi State received 40 Almajiris deported by the Kaduna State government, while Bauchi State Government received a total of 190 Almajiri pupils evacuated from Plateau State. Many northern states are also planning to do the same.
While the deportation is being hailed in some quarters, some think the deportation was inhuman and an abuse of the fundamental rights of the children.
A pro-democracy and human rights group, Concerned Nigerians, in its statement said that the state governors erred by deporting the children as they were vulnerable and that their lives may be endangered in the process of deportation.
The group, in a statement by its convener, Prince Deji Adeyanju, said the repatriation exercise was not only poorly thought-out, but also contravened the provision of Section 41 of the Constitution.
While urging the various state governments to halt the deportation, the group also berated government for neglecting the children over the years, and added that the long practice of the Almajiri System was an evidence of the failure of leadership in the country.
Reacting to the deportation, former Kaduna lawmaker, Shehu Sani, in a post on his Twitter page, warned that the deportation will increase insecurity in the future.
According to him, the Almajirai without education, will return as bandits and insurgents.
“When you arrest the dirty and beggarly Almajiri from your beautiful cities and ‘deport’ him to his village, away from your tourists, your visitors, your leisure and your sights, you are only hiding your dirty undies instead of cleaning them. The Almajiri you choose to deport to the villages and refuse to educate and integrate, will return to you as bandits or insurgents,” he had twitted.
It seems however, that the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the narrative on the issue of the Almajiri system, as governors across the northern states have not only begun to deport the boys to their states, but have also agreed to ban the system.
Makut Simon Macham, director of press and public affairs to the Plateau governor, disclosed in a recent press statement that 17 northern governors during a meeting convened via teleconferencing by Simon Lalong, governor of Plateau State and chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum, had agreed to a total ban of the system.
The statement added that the governors had vowed never to allow the system persist any longer, because of the social challenge it poses which include the perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy, insecurity and social disorder.