Dan Almajiri: A Victim Of A Society Fixated With Past Glory -By Christian Okewu Emmanuel

A few months ago, I came across a hausa song by Alhaji Ali Jita on the facebook wall of SK Usman. The title of the song is “Dan Almajiri”. SK Usman, for the records, is a retired Nigerian Army general, and its immediete past Public Relations’s Officer whose meritorious services to fatherland deserves attention in another write up. Seeing it on the wall of a high profile, serious-minded public figure like that was for me, curious, and at best a kind of branding for the song. He wrote: “Dan Almajiri, a very touching song by the ever talented Alhaji Ali Jita on the plight of the Almajiri. Posted here with Ali Jita’s gracious permission”. Before now I never knew about Ali Jita. So my curriousity was aroused. I clicked on the play button, and what I heard was half genius and half amazing in one pack. At the end I couldn’t agree less. It is a very touching song in deed.

In this song, Ali Jita broke his own record and showed himself to be a talented and an accomplished hausa musical artist enbued with a progressive mind. He was never an Almajiri. But combining talent and creativity, he loaned his voice to the victim, the Dan Almajiri, so that we all can get to hear from the horse’s mouth. In other words, while Ali Jita’s voice is what we hear, the Dan Almajiri is the story teller crying for compassion; hoping that someone out there will feel his pains, understand his pitiable plight and frustrations and change the course of his destiny. Dan Almajiri…

The first thing the Dan Almajiri does in the song is to announce his presence, introduce himself, hence “Ga Dan Almajiri!” More like saying “behold the Dan Almajiri.” Or “here comes the Dan Almajiri.” Or “this is the Dan Almajiri.” But lets pause here to ask the question: who is this figure that we can no longer ignore? First of all, the word “dan” here is a qualifier. It emphasises the category of the person being implied. It is a suffix implying a child, son, a little boy. It defines the Almajiri to be a little child. Thus he is not just any Almajiri in his adolescence. He is a child-Almajiri. It is like the phrase “child-soldier”. You know you are dealing with a minor; in this case, sometimes even an infant! Behold the child-Almajiri!

However, the term “Almajiri” is of Arabic descent, Muhajirun. Precisely, Muhajirun simply means “The Emigrants”. It is associated with the first converts to Islam who together with Prophet Mohammed (SAW) emigrated from Mecca to Madina during the Hijra. The singular, Muhajir, refers to a person who leaves his or her place of residence to reside in another place. It eventually came to be used of a person who departs from the comfort of his home to a distant place in pursuit of Islamic knowledge, usually at the foot of a renoun schorlar or teacher of the faith. In doing so he automatically acquires this status by virtue of his admission to study at the instance of the Alaramma, the teacher, to whom he becomes a student. A learner. A disciple. Thus in this case, the Dan Almajiri refers to a little child who is sent to a distant place at a very tender age to pursue Islamic education.

Long before the arrival of the colonial masters, this system of education had taken solid root in some northen emirates, and had thrived over the course of a few centuries. It became the practice for emigrants to travel across long distant places, even from neighbouring countries, to sit at the foot of these renowned Islamic teachers in pursuit of religious schorlarship. At this time, the system was squarely under the jurisdiction of the emirs and was supported by the traditonal system of government. These structures provided the oxygen for the system to prevail and to subsist.

Even the host communities played a very significant role. They provided a supportive background for the survival of the system. In compliance with the teachings of Islam which enjoins charity to wayfarers, the people were prompt at giving arms to these emigrants who had come to stay and to study within their neighbourhoods. The Almajiri also retuned the favour through offering free services to his host community. He tutored the little children of his benefactors in the preliminary stages of the Makarantan Allo. Furthermore, he engaged in gardening, weaving, sewing, farming and laundry and sundry services and other errand needs of the members of his host community.

In this way a natural, beneficial relationship of mutual assistance existed in the community between him and his host community. The Almajiri had dignity. He stood there as an example of pious dedication to a noble objective. He was also useful, as he never constituted a nuisance. These facts merited him the sympathy, respect and moral support of the public, in cash and kind. For while he studied, he also acquired some vocational skills or a trade in between. He did not roam. That is the Almajiri from the distant glorious past.

The one in Ali jita’s song however, cuts the picture of a victim and a product of a modern socieity at a loss; a society fixated with its past glory, and one that is never at ease with the reality of changing times. He is a modern specimen caught in between bygone lustre-years and fast-paced realities of modern transmogrifications. Presently, anywhere this modern Almajiri announces his presence, we hear him begging for alms: “A bani na annabi… Allah ziwahidun”. It is a status symbol of today’s Almajiri.

Unfortunately, Bara (begging for alms) in hausa is the act proper to destitutes. Almost always, people who take on to baranci do so due to some destitutional conditionalities, for example deformities, etc. These destitutes go from street to street, from shop to shop, in market places or bus stations begging for alms. The Almajiri of nowadays, by taking to baranci has equally become a destitute young man deformed by poverty and abandoned by the establishment. He lacks the very basic necessities of life. Modern society confuses his lack, his penury for piety and sacrifice.

This destitution became part of his identity when the initial structure came down crashing at the instance of western civilisation. This truth must be stated as it is. The arrival of the colonial masters; the introduction of a new system of government, and with it, western education conflicted with so many things around the African continent. And like many other affairs, this one too was severed from the apron string that kept it afloat. The traditional system of governance was made subservient to the new. The new system of government discontinued funding, thus depriving it of the needed oxygen to thrive. From then on as Chinua Achebe said, “things fell apart and the center can no longer hold…”

The Alaramma became helpless. He could no longer provide the needed sustenance for the learners, all alone. They were usually many. He had his family too to cater for. The inevitable consequence of this was for the Alaramma to send them into the streets to beg for alms. This was when begging officially became part of his curriculum. What is worst, time soon came when the Alaramma began to request for “kudin sati” (weekly stipend) from the Almajiri. The figure of a learner and a destitute eventually chrystalised like two sides of a coin. The modern Almajiri was born.

Over time, the system fell into total disrepear. It became an aberation. A wick of its old flame. In the early days when it was fighting for its life, the system cried out against its rival makarantan Boko (Western Education). Kicking against the goads, the Almajiri system cried out against this invading competitor: “yan makarantan bokoko, ba karatu, ba sallah, sai yawan zagin mallam”. I was a victim at the receiving end of the malice in this song while growing up in kawo. It was hauled at us while walking through the streets to the school. It was saying to us: “You students of western education; you do not learn the Qur’an, you do not pray, all you do is to go about making mockery of the mallam”.

Ironically, and unfortunately so, a close reflection on the Almajiri system as we have it today reveals that the Almajiri is worst off, doing the selfsame things they criticised the boko students in the past. This is clear from the words of the Dan Almajiri in Ali Jita song when he said that the mordern Almajiri does not even pray. All that he does is to beg for arms. Hear him:

Babu sallah, kuma babu mai mun tarbiya
Na dauki roba, domin wuya tai wuya
Bara nake yi, ba a bani ba tun safiya…

This for me is one of the clear signs of a system that has ran out of relevance in its present existential form. If the fundamental intention of the system is acquisition of religious education, it is a sad commentary to say that they no longer pray and lack one to impart guidance or moral upbringing. Little wonder then that he argues that the noble objectives could be achieved without having to travel farway from home, hence “In karatu ne ko gidan mu sai mun iya”. In fact no where did he doubt the relevance of this system as in the following lines:

Mai ake so mu zamo cikinta nan duniya?”
Wasu hauka daga nan suke bidan bibiya
Wasu sun koma shaye-shaye ba tarbiya
Wasu na ta fashi, sun datse zaman lafiya
Kadan sukan dace, kaga sun ajiye dukiya

In the foregoing the Almajiri wondered what exactly he is expected to become in today’s society, seeing as many have become mentally imbesilic, others have taken to drugs, and still others have taken to armed robbery; and only a handful eventually make it in life!

Another unfortunate reality about today’s Almajiri is the motive behind the parental decision to dispatch their children to such schools. It is becoming clearer to us that it is anything but a burning zeal to see their children acquire religious education. We may not be right to assume we know this to be the exact motive, but we may not be completely wrong to say that so many parents hide behind religion to bring children into the world which they lack the economic capacity to cater for; only to be all too willing to despatch them to distant places in the name of religious education. This explains why it is possible to find children of between 1 and 6 years being yanked off the bossom of their mothers and flung into far away places to seek knowledge. The Dan Almajiri in Ali Jita’s song recounts the horrible experience he had on the day his father took him to the city for the first time:

Da uwa da uba na su ka yi watsi dani
Makaranta su ce na je su huta dani
Tun ina karami suka baiwa Alaramma ni…
Tun fitowa na ga baba yayi shirin ya dani”

Here, he is heard narrating how both parents have forsaken him, and have sent him to school in order to be relieved of him. They got rid of him even when he was still a kid. He said with benefit of hindsight that he realised his father had always had the intention to give him away even from the moment of his birth!

I have a feeling therefore, that lack of governmental policies to regulate birth, the near absence of education on birth control may be feeding this anomaly. Perhaps, it is time to rethink the pros and cons of the practice of state sponsored mass wedding fatiha as we have seen in Kano and other places in recent years. Isn’t this practice an insentive for people who are clearly unprepared for marriage and incapable of taking on the responsibilities thereof to rush into it and to eventually procreate without a thought for the consequencies? Indeed, while such mass weddings is seen and praised as “taimakon addini”, it stands to reason that its long implication does not help adherents who obviously have no means of livelihood. It cost much more to maintain and cater for marriage than to sponsor and ratify weddings. It is therefore unfortunate to bring children into a world of misery and pain simply because parents find they could opt to send them off to the Almajiri schools at no cost to them whatsoever. Ordinarily those who should marry must be those who can assume the essential responsibilities of marriage in its existential form. It bears repeating that marriage requires the capacity to meet basic financial responsibilities: provide shelter, cater for children upbringing, education and supply for other basic needs. This was lacking in the experience of the Dan Almajiri in Ali Jita’s as the following lines reveal:

Ga ni yaro, kaya na jaki ya aza dani
Ni ina nishi, shi yana ta tsawa ga ni
Muka shigo mota, na ga za a birni da ni
Da zuwa gun mallam ya ce a lura da ni
Bai ajiye sisi, ko abinci ko magani
Na shigo birni, duk ana ta kyara da ni…
Babu ko kwano wanda zan bara da shi
Balle abinci, wa ma yake tunawa da shi
Babu takalmi wanda zani taka da shi
Wando ya yage, ina ta yawo da shi
Babu omo ba sabulu na wanka da shi…”

Among other things the Dan Almajiri calls for the abandonment of the system in order to embrase the path of progress in the world. He conceeded that the system is found only in northern Nigeria, and suggested that if we verify this fact we would descover that it is not in practice anywhere around Africa. In fact, he laments that it is one sour point of reference used as an object of mockery against northerners by other parts of the country; and that it is neither practiced in Europe nor even in Saudi Arabia. In his words:

Muna kira a bari, abi cigaban duniya,
Mu kadai ke yi, bincika dukan nahiya
Da shi ake mana gori a dukan naijeria
Ba a yi turai, ba a yi a can Saudiya

This shows that although we have said that the word Almajiri has an arabic root, it may not necessarily have a universal religious background. Thus scrapping it may not touch on any of its five pillars. If anything, it is one of the oprional tools of imparting religious education, what with the Islamia schools in most places. Thus while I may not call for the complete scrapping of the system, I would suggest its oxygenation through a special funding from the northern governors, using the emirate councils as organs of facilitation. As part of its revivalism, it should be updated to harmonise its curriculum with western education. Wouldn’t it be better to see a system where candidates are better educated with “allo” on the right hand and “boko” on the left? It is a contradiction to spend much on mass marriages in the name of “taimakon addini” when the same cannot be done for a thing like the educational system of the same religion.

Christian Okewu Emmanuel is a priest and the Judicial Vicar of the Catholic Archiocese of Kaduna and a Ph.D student of Canon Law in the Catholic Institute of West Africa, Port Harcourt.