Share!
The Arewa Consultative Forum ACF, a political and cultural association of leaders in Northern Nigeria, said it is in support of the decision by governors of the region to repatriate Almajiri kids to their home states.
Speaking on behalf of the forum, the ACF National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Yawe, said the menace of street begging by the Almajiris is retrogressive but faulted the approach adopted by the governors, describing it as clumsy and poorly implemented.
“The decision to repatriate Almajiris to their states was taken by the Northern Governors Forum and we have no quarrel with that because we don’t believe in the almajirinci system,” Yawe stated.
“It’s a retrogressive system. We don’t believe in it at all. It is against the human development of the North and the development of the country. So, the ACF is against the almajirinci system.
“So, the decision of the governors to take them to their states of origin and the state to find their families, we totally agree with it.’
He faulted the parents of the kids, saying that they ought to be responsible for their care. “If somebody has given birth to a child, he should be in the position to look after that child and not to throw the child onto the streets.”
“The only problem is with the implementation,” the ACF spokesman further stated. “The implementation is very clumsy and the governors should sit up and implement in a proper way.
“The governors are implementing it haphazardly. It is not properly implemented. You can’t just carry the almajiri in your state and without proper coordination with another state go and drop them and go away.
“If one state is taking them to another state, the state should be alerted accordingly so that the state should make proper arrangement to welcome and trace their parents and take them back to their parents.”
