Northern Muslims still under colonisation –Sanusi

Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi ll, has said that 60 years after independence, Northern Muslims are still under colonisation. He also said despite Nigeria’s independence, the country has refused to recognise the five-century old Islamic system of education. The emir made the statements at a public film screening of the docudrama on the Almajiri system titled ‘Duniya JuyiJuyi’ (How life goes) and the launching of the book, Qur’anic schools in Northern Nigeria, produced by a German, Hannah Hoechner. The event held on Wednesday at the Aminu Kano Centre for Democratic Research and Training, Mambayya House, Kano. Sanusi lamented the classification of Qur’anic scholars as illiterates, and their itinerant students as “out of school children.” Arguing that since literacy means “reading and writing” the almajiri should be recognised as literate. Almajiri is a system of Islamic education practised in northern Nigeria. Almajiri is gotten from an Arabic word, Al-Muhajirun, which means a person who leaves his home in search of Islamic knowledge. The system has, however, been bastardised with many of the children left to beg for food and money on the streets by the Islamic teachers. Sanusi said if almajiri students can read and write in Arabic or Ajami (Hausa writing in Arabic text), they are literate. The emir traced a history of sabotaging almajiri system to the colonial era. He said in an effort to fight Islamic civilisation, “a missionary Reverend Miller wrote a letter to Lord Lugard advising him to ban the use of Arabic and Ajami in official communication.” “It is high time for Muslims to pursue real independence because we are still under colonisation, because our culture and language does not have any value in the scheme of things. “No matter the number of Islamic books you read in Arabic or through almajiri system, as long as it is not English, you are illiterate according to Nigeria’s system of education,” he said. He argued that 60 years of colonialism “should not be the reason of neglecting 600 years civilisation.” Sanusi also questioned the wisdom of making English Language a pre-requisite for securing admission to study Arabic or Hausa in Nigerian universities.