IT'S MODERN COLONIALISM—Muslim Activists Reject Catholic Christians' Move To Train 10million Al-Majiri Children
Muslims rights activists are questioning the motive of a proposed intervention programme by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Rev. Matthew Kukah, to train about 10 million Al-majiri children in Northern Nigeria.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) Founder and Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola who acknowledged the destitute children are in need of help, said any such help from a Christian "gospeller" such as Rev. Kukah is a dubious effort aimed at colonising and converting the children to Christianity.
“We all agree that something must be done about the al-majiri children. We can welcome ideas from everyone, but the implementation must be in the hands of Muslims in the region, he said. Adding that "any other thing will make the intention questionable."
He said, “We cannot pretend to be so naïve as to entrust our Muslim children to the hands of Christian gospellers. As far as we are concerned, Kukah’s al-majiri dream is a Trojan horse.
“These children have teachers, even if the system is unconventional. The parents entrusted them to the teachers and learning still takes place somehow. “The devil we know is still better than the one we do not know and we expect Rev. Kukah to know better.
Can any Christian community allow an Islamic organisation to take their children away just like that? What is the fate of the children taken from Chibok to an Edo internally-displaced persons (IDPs) centre in 2014?”MURIC warned Northern Muslims, particularly the elders, never to allow it to happen."
Almajiri is a system of education practiced in Northern Nigeria in which children leave their homes in search of Islamic knowledge.
The system as practised today has attracted intense condemnation as children aged 4 and above have been enrolled in droves without any proper care from their parents or teachers and are shooed into the street to beg for food and clothes.
There are shocking reports of kidnap, beheading and large scale abuses perpetrated against the wandering and mostly destitute children.
A gaping report by the National Council for the Welfare of the Destitute (NCWD) approximated the number of current almajiri to 7 million.
