Onaiyekan makes strong case for Almajiri review, insurgency link
A former Catholic Archbishop of the Abuja Archdiocese, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, on Saturday blamed the worsening insecurity, especially in Northern Nigeria on the Almajiranci system, saying it had failed the region.
He also expressed concern that young boys who had been abandoned by their parents, were ending up a bandits and Boko Haram terrorists.
Onaiyekan stated this in Abuja during the premiere of a movie: “The Oratory”, produced by a Catholic priest, Dr. Cyril Odia, to raise awareness of the predicament of street children in the society.
He said, “This question of abandoned children is not new. It has been in the world almost from time immemorial. It is just that nowadays, in this age and year 2021, there ought not to be any more abandoned children. ”
We have a major issue right now in the north about Almajiranci system. There are young boys who have been abandoned by their respective parents. We know that many of them end up as Boko Haram terrorists.
“Right now, where are all the criminals coming from? Go to Kuje prison and find out the ages of the people who end up in jail. For those who are now insurgents and bandits, information reaching us is that many of the heads of those bandits are all young people, because of the way they have been trained. So, it shows immediately and you don’t have to wait for 10 or 20 years to see the implications of not doing anything to tackle the menace of street children”.
According to him, Northern leaders should be concerned about millions of young people in the region who never go through school.
The Cardinal said, “Ten years sago, these youths were children, but today, they are teenagers and young men, who have no skill of any sort and they are ready to be recruited to do anything.
“Today, we are already facing it and if we say that security is very difficult, this is one of the reasons why. It is not too late, if we decide to work seriously on it”.
Odia said that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria was in the millions, saying the book was meant to call for action.
