The Centre for Human Resources Development and Empowerment Initiative Kaduna, HRDEI, has kicked the plan by the lawmakers to establish Almajiri Commission to checkmate the menace of street kids. Executive Director of HRDEI, Mohammed Ali made the call yesterday in Kaduna saying the northern stallholders demand its total proscription of the practice instead. Some weeks before the National Assembly went on Christmas break, a Bill to establish the ‘Commission on Almajiri’ and other out-of-school children scaled a second reading in the House of Representatives.
As a usual practice in Nigeria and some other part of West African countries, the Almajiri, (Kid beggars) are students of the informal Qur’anic school (Tsangaya)whom their individual parents mostly from low-class families hands them over to the Tsangaya teacher with the view to train them learn how to read and write the holy Qur’an.
However, Ali in his argument stated that street begging in our modern day has now constituted a social, economical, and environmental menace that must be discouraged by all instead of sugar-coating the problem.
He lamented that the number of these street kids has been on the increase over the years until a deliberate effort is emplaced by the authorities to checkmate the menace, otherwise, they would snowball into a security threat that will be cancerous to handle in near future.
He explained, these same kids have become a menace in our motor parks, markets, religious centers, neighborhood, and ceremonial places.
The DHRDEI director attributes the act of begging to laziness, mental dependence, and oppressive consciousness.
He calls on the government to surmount courage to act in a way to disabuse the mind of Nigerians who think or believe that Islam approves begging instead.
