by Mohammed Bello Doka
15 June, 2026.
Today, I intend to touch a very sensitive issue that many are shy from touching because of certain traditions in the North that see the Almajiri system as a sacred institution that should not be criticized. Yet the very same people who defend this system as inviolable cannot, or will not, fund it properly. They watch silently as millions of children roam the streets, hungry and ragged, while they themselves possess the means to change everything but choose instead to hide behind cultural sanctimony.
Let me state plainly what every honest Northerner knows but fears to say aloud: insecurity will never be defeated in Northern Nigeria so long as millions of homeless, hungry and angry youth flood our cities begging for what to eat. A hungry teenager is a weapon waiting for a handler. And there are plenty of handlers now.
To understand how we arrived at this precipice, we must briefly trace the history of the Almajiri system in the North. The word Almajiri derives from the Arabic Al-Muhajirun, referring to the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who migrated in search of Islamic knowledge. For centuries, the Tsangaya system was a respected model of holistic education. Students memorized the Quran and also learned farming, fishing, weaving and tailoring. They were productive members of society, contributing to the famous groundnut pyramids that built Northern prosperity. The system was funded by state treasuries and community Zakat, and Almajiri children were not sent to beg.
The colonial disruption changed everything. When the British arrived in the early 1900s, they defunded the Tsangaya schools, seized farmland and redirected resources to Western education. For the first time, Mallams began sending children to the streets to beg for survival. What was once a dignified system of scholarship gradually transformed into a pipeline for destitution.
Let me be clear. The Almajiri system is not bad in and of itself. The original idea of seeking knowledge, of sacrificing comfort for learning, is noble. The Quran reminds us in Surah Al-Mujadila, God will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. Knowledge is sacred. But a system that has outlived its relevance, that is underfunded, unregulated and routinely abused, is no longer sacred. It is a carcass we are pretending is still alive.
Our collective shame is not the existence of the Almajiri system. Our shame is the failure to protect the very institutions we inherited from our forefathers. Those forefathers built libraries, not begging bowls. They endowed scholars, not street urchins. Yet today we are not shy to call our ancestors names on social media, to insult their memories, to abuse their legacy while hypocritically hiding under our smartphones and doing absolutely nothing. We tweet about the problem. We do not solve it.
The documented consequences are staggering. According to official estimates, between ten and thirteen million Almajiri children currently roam the streets of Northern Nigeria. In Kano alone, over one million children beg daily. In Borno, Yobe, Zamfara and Sokoto, the numbers are equally catastrophic. But numbers numb us. Let me speak instead of what these children have become.
The Almajiri system as currently practiced is a dangerous ticking time bomb that will destroy the North if not properly addressed. These children are not merely beggars. They are undereducated in the worst sense of the word. They are taught to memorize the Quran without any explanation, without any interpretation, without any knowledge of Hadith, without any grounding in Islamic jurisprudence or any of the vital disciplines required to understand the basic tenets of Islam. They can recite verses but cannot explain them. They can chant words but cannot derive meaning. This shallow, hollow instruction produces minds that are empty vessels, and empty vessels are the easiest to fill with poison. Extremist recruiters exploit this ignorance masterfully, presenting twisted interpretations that the child has no theological foundation to resist. A boy who has memorized the Quran without understanding it is not a scholar. He is a recording device, and anyone can overwrite his tape.
Beyond extremism, these children become errand boys for every criminal enterprise operating in the North. Drug dealers use them as couriers because no one searches a ragged Almajiri child. Human traffickers use them to lure younger children. Armed traffickers use them to transport ammunition across state lines. They are exploited for petty theft, for pickpocketing, for vandalism. They are paid in crumbs or not paid at all. They have no parents to question where they go, no guardians to notice when they return late, no future to lose if they are caught. The criminal underworld of Northern Nigeria runs on the backs of Almajiri children, and we pretend not to see.
Intelligence reports confirm that bandits and terrorist groups, including factions of Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, actively recruit Almajiri children for intelligence gathering, spying and logistics. A hungry boy of twelve who knows every alley in Katsina is more valuable to a bandit than a drone. He costs nothing. He asks no questions. He can be discarded after use. Security analysts have documented cases where Almajiri children were used as human shields, as couriers for ammunition, as lookouts for kidnapping operations. The menace they cause is not their fault. It is our fault for abandoning them.
The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said, Each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for his flock. We have abandoned our flock to wolves and now wonder why the wolves are at our gates.
Now let me speak directly to the political and business elite of Northern Nigeria. The richest black man in the world, Aliko Dangote, is a Northerner. The second richest man in Nigeria, Abdulsamad Rabiu, is also a Northerner. Between them, they have spent billions, perhaps trillions of naira on roads, on factories, on infrastructure, on universities and on scholarships for Western education. This is commendable. But where is the equivalent investment in reforming the Almajiri system? Where are the model Tsangaya schools built by our billionaires? Where are the endowments that would free Mallams from the need to send children to beg?
It seems our elite are strangely detached and isolated from the menace of hungry, angry and illiterate teenagers begging for crumbs on the streets. These same teenagers will one day knock on the gates of their factories, not for jobs but for vengeance. The philosopher Ibn Khaldun warned centuries ago in his Muqaddimah that injustice and neglect of the weak are the swiftest paths to the collapse of dynasties. Our dynasty of Northern influence is cracking.
Let me also address those who defend the system as it is. I have watched elite religious scholars appear on television to argue that Almajiri begging is a noble tradition. But I have a simple question. Why do none of these scholars send their own children to beg in the streets of Kaduna or Kano in order to learn? Why do they instead send their children to Saudi Arabia, to Egypt, to Sudan, to Iran and even to Western countries for education? The hypocrisy is stunning. They encourage poor parents to sacrifice their children while they protect their own.
The original justification for sending children far from home was the scarcity of qualified scholars. In the past, if a village lacked a learned teacher, a family might send a son to another region to study. That logic no longer holds. Today, every major city in Northern Nigeria has hundreds, even thousands, of qualified Islamic scholars. There is a madrasa on every street corner in Kano. So why are children still traveling for weeks on foot? Why are they still begging?
And let us note carefully that none of the countries our elite send their children to, not Saudi Arabia, not Egypt, not Sudan, not Iran, allow children to beg in the streets as a method of acquiring knowledge. In those countries, Quranic education is funded, regulated and integrated with modern schooling. A child memorizing the Quran in Cairo does not sleep under a bridge. A student of Islamic law in Khartoum does not compete with dogs for leftover food. Only in Nigeria have we turned a honorable pursuit into a horror show.
The dangers of the Almajiri system as it currently operates extend beyond insecurity. Medically, these children suffer from chronic malnutrition, exposure to cholera, malaria and typhoid. They are excluded from vaccination campaigns. Psychologically, they endure trauma that will never be healed. Socially, they grow into adults who have no stake in society, no loyalty to the nation, no reason to preserve what has destroyed them.
The Quran warns in Surah Al-Isra, Do not kill your children out of poverty. We provide for you and for them. We are killing their futures, if not their bodies, by our negligence.
So what must be done? First, adequate funding. The federal government has established the National Commission for Almajiri and Out of School Children Education, but it remains severely underfunded. Each of the sixteen Northern governors should be required by law to allocate no less than fifteen percent of their state budgets to Tsangaya integration and Almajiri welfare.
Second, formalization. Every Mallam who supervises Almajiri children should be registered, vetted and paid a monthly salary by the state on the condition that no child under his care is sent to beg. Any Mallam who continues to use children for street begging should be prosecuted under existing child protection laws.
Third, integration with modern education. The model of Tsangaya schools that teach Quranic studies in the morning and mathematics, science and vocational skills in the afternoon has already been tested in Jigawa State with promising results. That model must be expanded to all sixteen Almajiri-practicing states.
The bulk of responsibility ends on the sixteen Northern governors, that is, all Northern states except Benue, Plateau and Taraba where the system is not practiced. They have the constitutional authority over basic education. They control local governments and traditional institutions. They sign budgets and appoint commissioners. If a governor genuinely wanted to end child begging in his state, he could do so within four to six years. The fact that he has not even started is a choice.
The philosopher Imam Al-Ghazali wrote, Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil. By learning, the potential becomes actual. We have millions of seeds lying on barren ground. We have the wealth, the scholars and the legal framework to plant them properly. What we lack is the will.
It is left to the people to put the necessary pressure on those governors who send their own children to elite schools overseas while ignoring the children begging outside their government houses. We must name them. We must shame them. We must vote them out. And if voting fails in our imperfect democracy, we must make the cost of inaction higher than the cost of action.
Our collective shame will not end with another commission, another palliative rice distribution or another televised sympathy visit. It will end only when no child in Northern Nigeria is forced to beg for a meal in order to learn the words of God. Until that day, the cacophony of our shame will grow louder than any bomb or bullet. The bomb is already ticking. The question is whether we will disarm it or simply wait for the explosion.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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