This is one of such stories which would just pop up, author unknown: Once upon a time, in a village surrounded by hills and streams, there lived a poor man named Ajanaku. His job was religion, his hobby was farming behind his small hut. Ajanaku’s clothes were patched many times. But what Ajanaku lacked in wealth, he had in children. One child after another came into his compound, until the place looked like a busy marketplace.
The villagers pitied him.
“O Ajanaku,” they said, “your hands are empty but your mouth is full of children. Train them well, and one day they will be your wealth.”
But Ajanaku only laughed. “Children will train themselves,” he said. “The dog does not teach its puppies to bark; they learn by themselves. Besides, God that created them will feed them.”
So the children grew up without guidance. They roamed about the village, fighting, stealing, and wasting their days. When the elders tried to caution Ajanaku, he replied, “As long as they eat and sleep, what more do they need?”
Time passed. The children became men and women, but with no skill, no respect, and no sense of direction. Some turned to thievery, some became beggars, and others wandered away, never to return.
One evening, when Ajanaku was old and sick, he sat before his hut and called for his children. Only a few answered, and those few had nothing to offer. He looked around and saw that his compound, once full of laughter and noise, was now a place of sorrow. Ajanaku complained bitterly that life and society was unfair to him.
An elder passing by shook his head and said:
“Ajanaku, the child you fail to train will fail you when your bones are weak. He will even chase you out of your home and sell the house. Poverty is heavy, but untrained children make it heavier.”
Ajanaku wept bitterly, for he had sown recklessly and reaped emptiness. “Omo tí a kò k?´, ní yóò gbé ilé tí a k?´ tà”. The child you fail to train will sell the house you built.
Years ago, there were 10 million out-of-school children in Nigeria. Today, the figure has doubled, more than 80 percent of that figure is in the north. The results of years of wicked carelessness are here. Those children we failed to build are now auctioning the peace we once had. I cannot help but ask these questions, at this point: Is hunger a national, state or regional policy? Is there something northern leaders gain from the lack of development in that region? Is it fear or meanness that fuel the almajiri system?
While the term “Almajiri” is often associated with begging, it is important to note that the original intent of the system was to provide sound Islamic education. Many Nigerians who do not understand the depth of the almajiri system think ‘it is a culture thing.’ It is not. If it was, why is there a northern elite group who send their children, male and female, to Ivy League schools around the globe? These privileged few do not allow their daughters to become child brides. Their daughters acquire first and second degrees, have thriving businesses and work in blue-chip companies before they get married. So the leaders know what is right and so I conclude that it is either a fear of dying mysteriously or an attitude of ‘once my belly is full, who cares who is hungry’.
Are all the state houses of assembly in the region afraid to also make laws to wipe out the impoverishing, oppressive arrangement that is giving the region a bad name? Is this how it will always be? Will the political leaders from the north always run from their states of origin to hide in Abuja and Lagos? Unfortunately for all of us, this menace is like the payoff line of one of the telecoms companies, it follows us ‘everywhere you go’. Young, dirty and helpless, the poor boys pound the hot sidewalks barefoot in the north. Grown, jobless and desperate, they find their ways to other parts of the country to ride okaka, become farm labourers and then beggars.
In the cities they grow and get married, sometimes become husbands of many wives and procreate prolifically. The seeds of their labour knock on the windows of cars in traffic, begging for food, in pidgin English. The wives beg, the children beg. The husbands dig wells. And they are all from regions blessed beyond measure with rich soil and precious metals. But the neglected who did not go into the cities have been recruited in the forest to terrorise everybody. They are also procreating, raising the next generation of monsters.
The terrorists, the beggars, the labourers, were they not once babies with chubby cheeks, trusting innocent eyes and smiles that melted the heart? Were they not born like other babies after nine months? So, why the heck do northern babies get the short end of the stick all the time? Why do the southern babies get to go to nursery and primary schools and the northern babies end up with begging bowls in their hands all day and spend their nights in the open or uncompleted buildings? Is it that southern political leaders are smarter than those in the north?
Are southern elite more humane and generous than their northern counterparts? I think that is the real problem. Nigeria’s political leaders are not equal. Some are more focused on the right focus than others. How difficult is it to make six-year-olds go to school? At that age they still listen. They think school uniforms are great. They like the open-air football and the escape from their mothers’ errands. But northern parents and northern governments have for decades worked hand-in-hand to rob babies of their present and their future. Now those babies, like Asake sang, can no longer hear anything because years of neglect, stress and distress have cut off their ears. Terrorists and bandits heard their rumbling stomachs and introduced them to a new song and dance.
Everywhere is now up in flames, villages along with hectares and hectares of farmland and food. The parents who failed basic Parenting 101 are homeless. The Mallams who wanted to continue to do as their fathers did before them now live in fear. The rich elites have abandoned their country homes and fled to the FCT. I can see their babanriga billowing in the air, their starched caps on the sidewalks, exposing their bald heads. The picture is exhausting, not funny at all.
This preventable tragic turn of events is what all of us, including the fleeing northern leaders, should be worried about and determined to solve. Virtually all the 19 states in the region are in the grip of one fear or the other but somehow, a certain leader not too long ago said the North has been or is being marginalized by President Bola Tinubu. Please, what kind of conclusion is that? All the scenarios I have painted, which one was arranged by Tinubu or any single past president? It was Tinubu that discouraged parents from enrolling their children in school? The Almajiri system started in 2023? The angry and hungry young ones that were lured into heresy in the forest and told to wear iron clads around their ‘peckers’ so they can service seven virgins in the next world, whose products are they?
I have deliberately left out the name of the old man who made the statement because he was and is representing a group. There are hundreds of them like that who ignore leprosy to concentrate on pimples. They have refused to say exactly what is paining them. They, those old men, are the ones who have been marginalized. They are not in the office they believed should have been allocated to them. They are not spending free, easy money they are used to. They are feeling left out in the sharing scheme of things. The hungry, unemployed and unemployable young populace they have built and ignored over the years are not the marginalised one.
The terror that has chased businesses from the region is not a matter of urgent national importance. How the north will stop collocating in the same sentence with Almajiri, out-of-school children, VVF and okada riders does not bother them. All these ills that have steadily grown for almost a century do not give them sleepless nights. They are not forming coalition to elect governors strictly to end the years of the locust. They are eyeing a woman that will not marry them. They are saving towards a wedding they are not sure will ever take place.
When will the Almajiri regime end? When will the moneybags, the men who have made money from national and local politics since 1999 start appreciating God by lifting others, building others? And I am not talking of wheelbarrow initiatives, mass wedding palliatives or sending people to Mecca and Jerusalem. I mean real help that counts, the one that will make Allah smile.
It is not Tinubu that has marginalised the north. He is the President who is doing something about the demons in the forests of the north. Let the political leaders do the rest, put the almajiris in schools and give them a future. They have no alternative.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
