Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has emphasized on the need for political leaders in the North, specifically his colleagues, to redirect their energy towards educating the people, as well as focusing on agriculture.

Governor Sule made the call when he recently appeared as a guest on a Channels Television programme  monitored in Lafia.

This is just as the governor warned that the present Almajiri system, where young children are left to survive on the streets begging, is a time bomb waiting to explode.

The governor said the August 1st nationwide protest have exposed the underbelly of the North, with mostly young children under the age of 10 taking to the streets to join the protest even with most of them not knowing the reason behind the protest.

Governor Sule said it’s high time governors of the North tell each other the truth and to make haste to tackle the issue of education in the region as a way out of the gloomy future represented by the Almajiri system.

He added that both religious and traditional leaders in the North must be brought together in order for them to be carried along towards correcting the societal ills associated with the Almajiri system.

While lamenting that previous efforts by the governors to tackle the Almajiri syndrome in the region were rejected and criticized especially by religious leaders, the governor said time is now of the essence for everybody to join hands towards finding lasting solution to the system that has been subjected to gross abuse.

“I will tell you the next meeting that we should have as the governors of the North is no longer a meeting that you will say religion has forbidden you from doing this or that. Today, God has gifted us the governors with this leadership. If we don’t go out to say this has to be done right, then we are failing in our responsibilities,” he said.

He said an inkling of a bleak future for the region came to the surface during the recent protest, where both private and public facilities were vandalized and destroyed by rampaging youths.

“During this last protest that we had in Lafia, majority of those that came out on the street were the Almajiri, some of them 7 to 8 years old. A lot of them didn’t even understand the meaning of the protest. When I spoke with them later, they don’t even understand why the protest was organized.

“We must sit down. At a point in the year 2020, we sat down as the governors and took a decision about the Almajiri. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out well. They went back to square one. The religious leaders criticized it. But from what happened now, I don’t believe anybody will continue to criticize action that will be taken in order to move forward. Otherwise, it is a time bomb, it will come and consume everyone of us,” he stated.

Governor Sule identified lack of education as one of the major challenges confronting the North.

“When people lack education, lack economic empowerment, these people will continue to behave the way these Almajiris did during this protest. Education must be taken seriously in the North,” he said.

He stressed that his colleagues from the North must be sincere to each other by educating the people on the true position of Islam on polygamy, as well as giving birth to high number of children without adequately taking care of their responsibility.

“We must be sincere to each other, we must face each other and say, Sir marrying too many wives and having too many children when you can’t even take care of yourself is wrong. No religion is promoting that. No religion is allowing that. You can have more than one wife if you can afford. It is not just because you are a Muslim but if you can afford. Islam does not allowing giving birth to so many children and leaving them to go and beg on the street. Islam does not agree with that.

“Our religious leaders should be part of our meeting. People are misusing the title of this Almajiri. Almajiri is just a student. Almajiri is just being misused as a title. Almajiri is somebody seeking for Islamic education. It is not a beggar.

“From the beginning, let us educate ourselves. China educated themselves to say that you can have this number of children. Yes, they are not Muslims. There are more Muslims in India than in anywhere in the world. Yet they are following some of these Islamic teachings. They don’t follow some of these things that we are doing. In Saudi Arabia, majority of the people have only one wife. We need the education. We need to be educated by our religious leaders. They need to rise up. Everybody including traditional rulers and governors must rise up. We must wake up as leaders and do what is right for our region,” he added.

Governor Sule pointed out that the North is good in agriculture and that the region must exploit this comparative advantage for the good of the people.