There is something we have refused to confront honestly for years. We see it every day. We step over it on our way to work. We shake our heads and move on. Young boys roam the streets from dawn to night, bowls in their hands, dust on their feet, hunger in their eyes. We call it tradition. We call it religion. But deep down, we know something is wrong.
Almajiranci, as it exists today, is not culture. It is not spirituality. It is neglect dressed up as heritage. It is children pushed out of their homes in the name of learning, only to end up begging at traffic lights and sleeping in overcrowded rooms without care or protection. That is not education. That is abandonment.
There is consensus among ordinary Northerners that this system is an abuse of child rights and a dangerous path for the future of the region. Parents whisper it. Teachers say it quietly. Even many clerics admit it in private conversations. But when it comes to real action, the silence from those in power is deafening.
Northern governors gather at forums and condemn Almajiranci. They make strong statements. They promise reform. Yet year after year the streets are still filled with children who should be in classrooms. It remains talk without action.
The ulamas, who hold enormous moral authority, rarely confront the system boldly. Many are comfortable with the structure as it is. The lawmakers who have the power to criminalize the exploitation of children are more interested in official cars, contracts, and political survival. Meanwhile, the boys grow older on the streets.
Take Kano State as an example. In some localities, boys younger than ten walk for hours every morning with no breakfast to collect alms from strangers before their Quranic lessons. Many suffer beatings for minor mistakes or for failing to return with enough money. In Sokoto and Katsina, reports tell of boys fainting from exhaustion in the scorching sun, their only reprieve a thin mat under the shade of a tree where they sleep after the day’s ordeal. The suffering is not theoretical. It is documented in hospitals, in reports, and in the tears of mothers who cannot feed their own children.
Some states are beginning to show what is possible. Kaduna has piloted programs integrating Quranic schools into state-run education, providing meals and structured lessons. Jigawa has begun monitoring almajiri welfare and insisting on minimum standards for food, housing, and teaching. These examples show that reform is achievable, but scaling it requires leadership willing to put children first rather than contracts, politics, or tradition.
In many public primary schools across the North, children sit in overcrowded classrooms with broken chairs and absent teachers. They memorise without understanding. They move from one class to another without learning how to read properly, solve basic mathematics, or understand simple science concepts. After six years, too many graduate unable to compete with their peers elsewhere. Only the children whose parents can afford private schools receive the kind of foundational education that prepares them for the modern world.
This is not just a northern problem. It is a national one. The North is already struggling on almost every development index, from education to health to poverty. No region can move forward when its children are left behind. The future of any country rests on what it does with its young people. If they are not educated, not protected, not nurtured, then development becomes a slogan, not a reality.
In many public primary schools across the North, the story is just as troubling. Classrooms with broken walls. Overcrowded spaces. Teachers who are overworked and underpaid. In too many states, primary education is treated as an afterthought.
And then we wonder why insecurity grows. Why frustration festers. Why poverty refuses to loosen its grip. A child who grows up hungry, uneducated, and ignored does not magically become a productive adult. Nations are built deliberately. They are not built by accident.
We cannot keep pretending this is complicated. It is not. It requires courage. It requires governors who will invest seriously in basic education and enforce laws against child exploitation. It requires lawmakers who will put children ahead of contracts. It requires religious leaders who will speak clearly and act boldly. Most of all, it requires citizens who will refuse to be distracted by speeches and demand measurable change.
One day, we will have to answer for what we allowed. Not to foreign observers. Not to development agencies. But to the children themselves. The boys on the streets of Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna, and beyond. They did not choose this life. It was chosen for them.
If we are serious about the future of the North, then we must be serious about its children. Not tomorrow. Not after the next summit. Now. Because every year we delay, another generation slips quietly through our fingers. And history is not kind to those who knew better but did nothing.
Almajiranci, left unchecked, will continue to drag the North backward and deny the nation the progress it deserves. The time for words is over. Action is long overdue. Every child in the North deserves a school, a meal, a safe place to learn, and the chance to become more than a survivor.
And if leaders fail once again, history will not forgive them, and neither will the children whose potential they stole.
Stephanie Shaakaa
08034861434
