Calling on Governor El-Rufa’i

Your Excellency Sir, in your efforts to make Kaduna state great again, you introduced many policies which are directly or indirectly advantageous to the people of the state.
I like your courage in dealing with what others see as difficult tasks even at this period of politicking and electioneering.
Your mission to reform our education system cannot be accomplished until and unless all school age children are no longer roaming our streets and major roads in the name of begging (almajiranci).
Almajiranci has been a plague in northern Nigeria for many decades and has defied all attempts by previous governments to tackle it.
This street begging by minors is indeed a child abuse and demeaning, dangerous and unjustified and they give northern Nigeria, its people and the religion of Islam a very bad image in the eyes of other Nigerians and foreigners alike.
Statistics have shown that there are over 9 million Almajiri children that are out of school, most of them of northern origin. In the end they acquire little or no religious education, they entirely miss out on western education, they fall prey to all dangers of city, they grow up without useful skill and they inflate the ranks of the urban underclass that has fuelled crime, societal ills, unrest, riots and even insurgency.
My prayer is that please you should come to the aid of these children. Although laws exist to protect minors and prevent street begging by children, they are seldom enforced.
Sir, I am very sure that by the time you take a bold step in stopping almajiranci in kaduna state, other northern states will surely do the same just as some other states proclaimed that they will emulate your educational reform.
Thank you.
Yours in nation-building,

Halliru Anas
[email protected]

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