I have spent the better part of this week wrestling with the rising security challenges confronting our nation. Honestly, I was almost feeling depressed by the daily cascade of grim news — bandits overrunning communities in the Northwest, terrorists tightening their grip on the Northeast, kidnappers turning the highways into killing fields, and the creeping anarchy that now threatens to swallow almost every corner of the country.
I must salute our troops for standing in the gap for this nation, keeping us safe while we sleep soundly at night. Without their sacrifice, the situation would be far grimmer than we dare imagine. I also commend my colleagues in the press who brave the frontlines of this chaos. They venture into forests where armed men hold sway, they step into villages that have become graveyards, they risk their lives daily so that the rest of us may know the truth of what is happening. Their courage humbles me. I do not know how they manage to smile through the trauma they witness, but I am deeply grateful that they do.
While I was still in this transit mood — swinging between despair and anger, I stumbled upon Governor Abdullahi Sule’s address at the Summit on Enhancing Human Capital Development in Northern Nigeria held in Abuja. I read his speech once, then twice, then a third time. And something remarkable happened. My confidence was renewed again.
Here, I thought, was a leader who understood that the security crisis and the Almajiri crisis are not separate problems — they are the same wound festering in different parts of the body. This, I realised, is the conversation we have been avoiding for too long. This is the truth that needs to be told. This is the right time to write about it.
Those of us who have spent time in the North cannot claim ignorance. In Keffi, Nasarawa State, where I pursue my studies today, the Almajiri children are everywhere — a permanent, haunting fixture of the urban landscape. They wander the streets with their worn-out bowls, their young voices rising in Quranic recitation, their hands perpetually outstretched for whatever alms passersby could spare. They sleep in the open when the Harmattan wind bit hard. They splash water on their faces when the sun scorched the earth. They are everywhere, yet nowhere in our national consciousness.
That line came flooding back as I read Governor Sule’s address. Because here, at last, was a Northerner, a governor no less, standing before his peers and declaring that the fire is not only real, it is spreading — and the Almajiri system is the kindling. He did not sugarcoat it. He told the truth, and he told it plainly.
The governor presented numbers that ought to make every Nigerian sit up. Our country currently has approximately 18.3 million children who are not enrolled in any form of schooling. Eighteen million three hundred thousand young minds, left to the streets, left to chance, left to whatever fate throws at them. Governor Sule then dropped the bombshell: children from the Almajiri system account for between 72 and 81 percent of that staggering figure. The vast majority of them are concentrated in the northern states. In Nasarawa State alone, the governor revealed, roughly 430,000 children are out of school.
Four hundred and thirty thousand. In one state. That is not a statistic. That is a generation being sacrificed on the altar of tradition.
Governor Sule did what many of our leaders have been too timid to do. He connected the dots between the Almajiri system and the insecurity that has made the North a theatre of war. He told his audience that many of the young people who are drawn into banditry and criminality emerge from the Almajiri system. This is the reality on the ground. When you raise a child on the streets, when you deny him education, when you expose him to every form of exploitation and abuse, when you teach him that the only way to survive is to beg or to take — what do you expect will happen?
The governor called for urgent action to break what he rightly described as “the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and insecurity.” But he did not stop at diagnosis. He prescribed a cure. He asked the National Assembly to enact legislation that would permanently prohibit the Almajiri system and introduce compulsory formal education and vocational training in its place. He proposed that the Northern Nigeria Governors Forum, the Arewa Consultative Forum, traditional rulers, and the National Assembly come together to draft a bill that would end this practice once and for all.
It is a proposal that has been made before, but never with such clarity and moral force.
The governor also revisited the 2020 decision by Nasarawa and Kaduna States to repatriate Almajiri children to their states of origin. I remember that intervention vividly. At the time, it seemed like a bold move. But as Governor Sule himself admitted, “while the intervention was necessary, it failed to provide a lasting solution to the problem.” He is right. You cannot solve a structural problem with a temporary fix. You cannot chase children from one state to another and call it a solution. You cannot address a crisis of this magnitude without a comprehensive legislative framework that provides not just penalties but alternatives.
The governor insisted that enforcement measures must be complemented with practical alternatives that guarantee access to education and opportunities for young people. This is where the rubber meets the road. A ban without a replacement is merely punishment. A prohibition without provision is cruelty dressed as policy. Governor Sule understands this. The question is whether the National Assembly and his fellow governors do.
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the governor’s address was his personal testimony. He told the audience that he attended a public school in Gudi, Nasarawa State, and later trained as a certified welder at a public technical college. He argued that investment in technical and vocational skills can help Nigerian youths compete favourably for specialised jobs. This is not a man speaking from an ivory tower. This is a man who knows, from personal experience, that skills training works.
I have often argued that we have over-emphasised university education at the expense of vocational training. The result is a nation of degree holders who cannot fix a broken pipe or wire a faulty socket, while we import artisans from other countries to do the jobs our people should be doing. Governor Sule’s experience as a certified welder is a testament to what is possible when we take skills development seriously. If a governor can rise from a public technical college to the highest office in his state, what excuse do we have for not investing in similar opportunities for millions of Almajiri children?
Governor Sule also addressed an issue that many Northern leaders avoid like a plague. He spoke about early marriage. He warned that practices such as marrying off underage girls “cannot be justified by citing the marriage of the Prophet Muhammad to Hajiya Fatima at a young age, since the realities of today differ from those of over a thousand years ago.” This is the kind of bold, unflinching truth-telling we need from our leaders. He did not demean the Prophet. He did not insult the religion. He simply stated the obvious: what worked in the 7th century Arabia cannot be transplanted wholesale into 21st century Nigeria without adaptation.
He urged Nigerians to be guided instead by the warning in the Holy Quran, Surah An-Nisa, where Allah cautions all of humanity to fear Him and treat orphans and women with justice. This is a masterful stroke — using scripture to challenge practices that are often defended in the name of scripture. It takes courage. It takes conviction. It takes a leader who is more interested in solutions than in popularity.
Governor Sule also sounded a warning that ought to give every Nigerian pause. He said that dealing with the Almajiri problem in the North alone would not be sufficient, since children who are not properly absorbed into education or employment “may simply migrate elsewhere in the country.” This is not a Northern problem. This is a Nigerian problem. The Almajiri child of today is the bandit of tomorrow, and bandits do not respect state boundaries. They do not ask for visas before they attack. They do not check geopolitical zones before they kill.
Governor Sule has thrown down the gauntlet. He has done his part. He has told the truth. He has provided the data. He has given a personal testimony and has laid out a practical solution. He has challenged the National Assembly to act and has called on traditional rulers and intellectuals to join the effort.
Now, the question is: Will the Northern elite pick it up? Will the National Assembly have the courage to pass the legislation? Will the traditional rulers use their influence to support the reform? Will the intellectual class engage with the issue honestly, without hiding behind cultural sensitivities? Will the Arewa Consultative Forum set aside its opposition and join the effort?
Or will we continue to watch our children roam the streets, begging for alms, while we comfort ourselves with the fiction that we are preserving tradition? Will we continue to see them recruited into banditry and terrorism while we insist the problem is beyond our control? Will we continue to bury our heads in the sand while the North — and indeed Nigeria — burns?
There is a story about a man whose house is surrounded by rising floodwaters. A rescue boat comes. He refuses, saying, “God will save me.” A helicopter comes. He refuses again. When he drowns and meets his Maker, he asks, “Why didn’t you save me?” The answer comes: “I sent a boat. I sent a helicopter. What more did you want?”
Governor Sule is that boat. He is that helicopter. What more do we want?
The North is burning. The fire is real. The Almajiri system is the fuel. The question is not whether we should act. The question is whether we will act before the fire consumes us all.
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