Kaduna governor, Governor Nasir El-Rufa’I, has criminalised enrolment of children in Quranic schools, better known as Almajiri in the state.
It is an age-long practice among Muslim parents and guardians in the north to enrol their wards into Almajiri schools outside their states of residence. The culminations are an ill-educated population and a biblical proportion of youngsters roaming the streets begging for alms.
Speaking in Kaduna on Monday, when he visited some 200 Almajiri children repatriated from Nasarawa State and undergoing rehabilitation and optical screening at Government College, Kurmin Mashi, Kadu, El-Rufai warned parents to desist from the act or risk jail.
The governor said that any Islamic cleric into the practice would also be prosecuted and jailed as well as fined N100,000 or N200,000 per child.
He said that all the Almajiri pupils repatriated from other states of the country were indigenes of the state adding that the government would give them all the opportunity they deserved to grow and develop.
