Opinion: Why Almajiri Shouldn’t Be About Destitution and Need, By Majeed Dahiru
…the menace of 14 million out-of-school children, attached to the supervision of a religious leader, while given the honorific of an “Almajiri institution”, is the unique dysfunction of a northern Nigerian Muslim culture, which holds education in contempt, and is without parallel in the larger Muslim world.
However, the successful repelling and crushing of invading Muslim Fulani jihadi forces from the Emirate of Bida around 1885 by an alliance of Ebira tribal warrior chieftains, in an encounter recorded in oral history as “ireku ajinonoh” , delayed the arrival of Islam in Ebira land from the 19th century to the early 20th century.
Over a century-and-a-half later, Okene is today a predominantly Muslim town with most families having an Islamic heritage spanning five generations, which has seen a near absolute substitution of ancestral traditions, customs and norms with puritan Islamic Prophetic traditions, as evident in the deeply religious way of life of the people.
Like me, other children in the community were simultaneously enrolled in the formal school system, as well as in the nearest Madrasahs to their respective homes, by their parents or guardians, who similarly fed, clothed and sheltered them with care and love.
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