The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi has called on Nigerians, to ensure they give birth to the number of children they can cater for.
Mr Sanusi advised Nigerian couples while he spoke at the opening of the 108th edition of Islamic Vacation Course (IVC), organised by the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN) Zone B, in Ogun State.
In his view, the monarch while speaking on the array of social problems bedeviling Nigeria, posited that the ‘almajri’ challenge in Northern Nigeria is not a religious concern, but a social issue that needs urgent attention.
Premium Times noted that the almajiri challenge involves out-of-school children who are sent, often by their parents, to Islamic clerics to live and learn Quranic knowledge but often end up begging and doing menial work on the streets. Millions of almajri children roam Northern Nigerian streets amidst efforts of local and federal authorities to solve the problem.
Mr Sanusi said, “If we continue this way, about 40 per cent extremely poor people will be in Nigeria. Poverty in the South West is 20 per cent, in the North, it is 80 per cent, Lagos is 8 per cent and Zamfara, it is 91 per cent.
“We have been talking about almajri for over 30 years. Why are people having family that they cannot maintain? Why are people marrying wives that they cannot maintain? The condition is that you are able to provide for your family.
“Instead of having many children, why not have the ones you can cater for? These are the fundamental questions we should ask ourselves.
Most of these children roaming about the streets will be adult in the next 20 years and they will be the ones recruited as political thugs by the politicians in the next twenty years, if we don’t take good care of them now.
“This is my own advice that we must look at. These are not religious issues, they are social issues that need to be addressed”.
