Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State, has said that the almajiri system in the north has been put to an end totally.
El-Rufai who spoke during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, disclosed that over 30,000 almajiri children have been repatriated to other states and his administration is reviewing the states laws to ensure that the system is never established again.
He said:
“The Northern Governors Forum took a collective decision at a meeting we had about two weeks ago that we will end the almajiri system completely, we will abolish it.
“And part of the steps we took was to return them to their states of origin. We also decided that each state government will take delivery of these almajiris and return them to their parents and ensure that they go to school.
“We have done that in Kaduna; we have repatriated over 30,000 almajiris from other states back to their states and we are happy to receive any almajiri from any state of the federation that are indigenous to Kaduna.
“We have been expanding our schools, building classrooms to accommodate these children. It is better to cram 200 children in a classroom and give them some kind of modern education than to allow them to waste their lives away and go around begging. Anything is better than this system and we are determined as northern governors to end it.”
“If these children were not brought to us, they simply would have died in Kano. Some of them would survive the disease, but the situation in Kano is overwhelming and I don’t think that anybody in Kano will want to look after them and test them.”
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