News
Nigeria’s Alms Race
You probably thought I misspelled or you misread. Sadly, that is the title.
Location: Borno
Temperature: 40C/104F degrees scorching hot days and 12C/54F freezing cold nights.
Time: 2am approximately, some day in 2009
Two 9 year old almajiri boys were in bed; well, on the floor actually, inside or beside a mosque or nondescript shack somewhere in Borno state, north east of Nigeria.
One woke up to use the “bathroom” that fateful cold night and when he got back, the second had pulled his, and the only blanket over himself.
‘Give me my blanket,’ the almajiri boy demanded. The other “bully” would not let go, not just because he felt stronger, but because the nights get so cold in Borno, you just can’t give that up.
At the end of the fight that ensued, one of the 9 year old almajiris, the smaller one who owned the blanket had pulled out his life protective dagger they always have on them, one of…actually the only asset they ever have, and stuck it into the bully.
He lay dead in a pool of his blood.
Fast forward to 2012, Amanda meets a nice, passionate lawyer who described this incident to her. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said, ‘I just can’t let this boy keep rotting in jail.
You need to understand the predicament of these almajiri boys. They have nothing, they belong to no one.’
Amanda tells me how she once held conversation with an almajiri – about 7-8 years old, making his rounds on the dusty, harsh-weather roads of Borno.
Borno where they say, in the winter morning, you must open your mouth with care, else you hear your lips crack and see the blood gush from them.
‘Where are you from?’ Amanda asked him.
‘I think somewhere in Katsina,’ he replied.
‘Who are your parents?’ Amanda asked.
‘I do not know, I came here when I was 3. … I am a child of the world.’ The boy replied.
It brought tears to her eyes. It brought tears to mine too, hearing her narrate it.
This is the typical tale of the almajiri boys in the nuclear alms race on the dusty roads of cities in northern Nigeria.
The north eastern extremes of Nigeria which by Soludo’s account, compares economically with places like Somalia and Eritrea.
With a 72.2% poverty rate in the North East region, the highest level of poverty in Nigeria, followed closely by North West (71.1%).
On the contrary the South East at 26.6% has the lowest level of poverty of poverty in Nigeria followed by South/South (35.1%) and South West (43.05%).
With such poverty levels, it is not surprising that the Boko Haram terrorist cult easily finds recruits.
What is even Boko’s story? A people disgruntled with the system.
Who knows, its founders and top leaders may have all been almajiris, abandoned by their parents, their country and their traditional and religious leadership.
The Muslim mualims (teachers), almajiri’s are hooked up with are slave masters at the best. They show these boys no love.
They whip them, sparingly teach them any quality Islam, and send them out to go race for alms.
Psychology and psychological trauma is a very important factor in propensity for criminality and terrorism.
Just last week, two Nigerian boys, both Michael Adebos, were reported to have killed a soldier in Woolwich, UK.
After the horror of the event was endured, details about circumstances leading to the extreme actions of Michael Adebolajo started slowly trickling into the news.
A serious Muslim revert with staunch views, Adebolajo visited Kenya for some form of Islamic experience.
While there, the Kenyan police allegedly picked him and a few others up from their village and interrogated them.
Adebolajo’s friend, Abu Nusaybah recounted on BBC interview, that Adebolajo who told the security men that he would not speak, was promised,- ‘this is Africa, not UK, we torture here.’
The torture and sexual abuse he was put through made him a changed man, his friend said. From then on, the young man with two wives became ‘changed and withdrawn.’
To top it up, according to his friend, the British security services who it appears brought him back to the UK from detention in Kenya, routinely paid him visits and ‘harassed,’ and ‘bugged,’ him to work for them, as he reportedly complained to his friend. The rest is history.
A boy reportedly abandoned by his parents when he reverted to Islam and played hard cards by the local and foreign security, went to pick and kill a security related officer.
Their actions can never be justified in today’s world; however a history of family, and societal abuse and dysfunction is hardly uncommon in so many cases related to the propensity for social oppositional and gravely violent behavior.
Research reveals that children from domestically violent homes are several times more likely to be abusive parents with up to half being involved in violent relationships and marriages.
These social and psychological developmental correlations are as many as there are disorders.
Amanda was on a journey with the lawyer who told her the story of his almajiri inadvertent murderer youth client.
But before the journey started, an almajiri boy had come to try to board their bus, with less than enough for the fare.
Amanda chipped in to enable him travel with them. The boy sat quiet till they got to Bauchi.
At a food and prayer stop in Bauchi, the boy came back and Amanda noticed he had had something ‘spiritual,’ not from the Mosque, behind it perhaps, or somewhere else altogether, ganja, marijuanna possibly.
Suddenly he was all loud and talkative. ‘Those in this bus who think they are better than others….who think they can control what happens here… We have killed before, we will kill you here…’ The almajiri revealed the inner ambitions of his heart.
His desire to subdue and control society. To revenge, to prove he is someone, that he has influence and power too.
He was not speaking in relation to any event or person on the bus. Hadn’t Amanda, one of the passengers, given him money to enable his travel? He was talking to society at large.
Those were the kind of statements he was uttering, to everyone’s distress. The driver was bothered, soon he parked.
The lawyer now went up to the boy and landed him a hot punch. From somewhere on his body, his dagger fell. The journey continued without him, as can be expected.
But he’ll be just fine, like the cave men of the beginning of time, like animals in the wild; the almajiri has learned to get by in the dusty thatched jungles of the north.
Many crisscross countries in their race for alms. Oblivious of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad’s borders, these nuclear beggars traverse any type of terrain, with no one to miss them if they die; who cares.
Life is merely worth your pocket load of alms. Hopefully the picture you see attached to this UNICEF article is one I came across a while back, March 2012, of almajiri refugees who fled Nigeria to Chad due to early on Boko Haram-government clashes.
I spent a few minutes looking at the pictures. I still can’t get over it. It was written in that story in 2012, that the boys were in the cross hairs:
Migrants told UNICEF they fled the villages of Douri and Madaye in eastern Nigeria when members of the Boko Haram militant group attacked them, burning down houses. Police and military forces then arrived and started firing at those who remained, claiming they were Boko Haram supporters, according to witness accounts.
The last few weeks have been weeks of reflection for north Nigeria. A region where the leaders – from the parents, to the traditional/religious leadership and up to the governors, and presidents, have failed in absolute proportions.
The governor of Kano, Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso put it out straight and unglazed. ‘Our problem, the insecurity is the failure of us as parents, the society at large and the leadership.’
Of the children, he said, “they grow up to hate themselves, hate their parents, hate the leaders, and hate the government and the society.
They feel they were deprived, they feel injustice and they become enemies of the state and constituted authorities; and thereby becoming vulnerable to crime and violence.”
He further explained that typical northern parents have 20-30 children and keep two or three they like, while sending off the remaining dozens out into the almajiri world to never know love.
Senate president David Mark said the same thing days later, alleging that he spoke Nigeria’s Sharia master who told him categorically that the almajiri system is Haram (forbidden in Islam).
Boko Haram’s uncontrollable terror is the reward for this wickedness. Amanda told me the then Governor of Borno, hired these almajiris and defunct schools like that of late Muhammed Yusuf, arming them to be his political thugs.
For the first time in their lives, the almajiris got a job; they got some sort of social belonging, some meaning and relevance and along with it came finance.
How will they ever abandon such lucrative lifestyle, and opportunity to tell the world, we are better than you, we harass you, duck western civilization, duck the government of Nigeria, duck anyone who stands in our way.
To be on TV every day, on radio. To kill parents like theirs who abandoned them and sentence children, hitherto lucky, into a cold world without the shelter of a loving home? To revenge and get paid.
Cap that with the free flow of more potent ‘spiritual’ uplifting concoctions Boko Haram is said to be availing its recruits and the likelihood of surrender approaches the likelihood of the United States and Israel willingly accepting a Nuclear Iran.
The almajiri’s are not going back. Nigeria must urgently find a way to start giving them something else, other than the permission to beg. Parents must be fined and incarcerated for child abandonment. A social welfare system must be immediately constituted. This is available in all developed societies.
The lack of it predicts sure and certain chaos. And the Mosques must preach that Islam does not permit riots and nonsensical violence, that hooliganism is not Jihad.
The Mualims and proponents of the almajiri system must know the prohibition in Islam of sending able-bodied young men to beg. To them, this message from the prophet of Islam:
Whoso openeth unto himself the door of begging, God will open unto him the door of poverty.
Verily it is better for any of you to take your rope and bring a bundle of wood upon your back and sell it, in which case God guardeth your honor than to beg of people, whether they give or not; if they do not give, your reputation suffereth, and you return disappointed; and if they give, it is worse than that, for it layeth you under obligation.
Whoever hath food for a day and a night, it is prohibited for him to beg.
It is time to start ending the nuclear alms race.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah
Every Nigerian Do Something [ http://ENDS.ng ]
Contact: [email protected]
Article References:
http://www.irinnews.org/report/95014/nigeria-chad-migrants-fleeing-boko-haram-violence-await-aid
http://saharareporters.com/news-page/kano-governor%C2%A0kwankwaso-blames-government-and-society%C2%A0for%C2%A0nigeria%E2%80%99s-insecurity
http://newsrescue.com/poverty-in-the-north-a-mayday-call/
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/05/abolish-al-majiri-system-mark-tells-northern-govs/
The World Bank Group has announced the 31-month debarments of United Aviation Services Limited (UNASEL), a transportation services company based in Nigeria, and Air Vice Marshal Alkali Mamu, its owner and president, “in connection with fraudulent practices under the Enhancing Niger Northeastern Connectivity Project,” according to a press release issued by the multilateral development bank.
The statement said that the project aims to enhance connectivity and road safety along the Zinder-Agadez Road section and improve access to basic socioeconomic infrastructure for selected communities in that road section.
However, according to the statement: “UNASEL and Mr. Mamu presented false experience documents in a prequalification application to qualify for a contract under the project. This was a fraudulent practice under the World Bank’s sanctions framework.”
“The debarments make UNASEL and Mr. Mamu ineligible to participate in projects and operations financed by Bank Group institutions. The debarments are part of two settlement agreements under which UNASEL and Mr. Mamu admit culpability for the underlying sanctionable practices,” it added.
The statement further said: “Per the Bank Group Sanctioning Guidelines, the settlement agreements provide for a reduced period of debarment in light of UNASEL and Mr. Mamu’s cooperation.
As a condition for release from sanction under the terms of the settlement agreements, UNASEL and Mr. Mamu commit to developing and implementing integrity compliance measures that reflect the relevant principles set out in the Bank Group Integrity Compliance Guidelines, and Mr. Mamu further agrees to complete corporate ethics training.
UNASEL and Mr. Mamu also commit to continue to fully cooperate with the Bank Group’s Integrity Vice Presidency.
“The debarments of UNA SEL and Mr. Mamu qualify for cross-debarment by other multilateral development banks under the Agreement for Mutual Enforcement of Debarment Decisions that was signed on April 9, 2010.”
Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State, has approved the allocation of a parcel of land in Enugu, the state capital, for the establishment of a state-of-the-art Digital Fabrication Centre by the Industrial Training Fund.
Mbah announced this while receiving a delegation from the Industrial Training Fund on a courtesy visit to the Government House, Enugu.
The ITF disclosed this on Friday in a statement signed by its Director of Press and Public Relations, Thomas Ngor.
According to the statement, Mbah described the proposed project as timely and aligned with his administration’s vision of transforming Enugu into a leading destination for investment, innovation and technology-driven industrial development.
He noted that the future of economic prosperity lies in deliberate investments in human capital and emerging technologies, adding that the state has continued to create an enabling environment for innovation, enterprise and sustainable growth.
The governor explained that his administration has made technical education compulsory in the state’s basic education system, with emphasis on digital literacy, robotics and mechatronics to prepare learners for the future of work.
According to him, many traditional trades are now driven by digital technologies, making it imperative to equip young people with relevant technical competencies that will enable them to compete globally and contribute meaningfully to economic development.
Governor Mbah further disclosed that his administration has built smart schools across the state, equipped with robotics centres, mechatronics laboratories and other modern learning facilities, to prepare youths for the evolving global economy.
He noted that artificial intelligence is expected to contribute about $20tn to the global economy in the coming years.
He therefore stressed that the state must be intentional about upskilling its citizens, adding that the establishment of the ITF Digital Fabrication Centre will significantly strengthen the state’s drive to build a knowledge-based economy, foster innovation, promote local manufacturing and create employment opportunities for its growing youthful population.
Earlier, Afiz Ogun, the Director-General of the ITF, who led the delegation, said that upon his appointment by President Bola Tinubu, he was mandated to upskill Nigerian artisans to international standards.
He explained that the Fund subsequently repositioned its technical and vocational skills development efforts through strategic initiatives, including the Skill-Up Artisans Programme, which is designed to train, certify and license Nigerian artisans to international standards.
Ogun disclosed that the Fund had already established a Digital Fabrication Centre in Ikeja, Lagos, with the capacity to produce more than 400 different products. He therefore requested the allocation of land in Enugu State to establish a similar centre with the same production capacity.
According to him, the initiative is aimed at promoting industrialisation, reducing dependence on imports and preparing Nigerians for opportunities in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
He also reaffirmed the Fund’s readiness to enter into public-private partnerships that will transform Nigeria’s artisanal ecosystem.
Ogun further noted that digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, robotics and computer-aided manufacturing, are rapidly transforming the global economy, making it imperative for Nigeria to deliberately invest in upskilling its workforce to remain globally competitive.
The ITF delegation was later conducted on a guided tour of facilities at one of the smart schools established by the Enugu State Government.
Glovo, a multi-category tech company, has announced its integration into the generative AI ecosystem with the launch of its “Shopping Assistant” for ChatGPT and Claude. Users can now discover retail products, compare prices, and seamlessly order any item using natural conversational language with the AI systems.
The Glovo experience inside such platforms introduces a conversational commerce model that shifts from a search-based web to an intent-based web. Rather than navigating traditional app menus and filters, users can express needs, such as asking for a “last-minute gift for a coffee lover under ₦50,000”, and the assistant handles semantic search, location validation, and product curation.
A Seamless, Concierge-Like Experience
Once both platforms have been connected through either ChatGPT or Claude apps, the user will be able to have a multi-turn dialogue where the assistant remembers context and constraints, such as budget caps. Users receive a visual carousel of up to five highly customised product options available at local stores. Each product displays its image, name, store details and ratings, and price. While the search and discovery experience takes place directly on the Generative AI platforms, selecting a product via the “view on Glovo” button takes the user to the Glovo mobile or web app, where the payment and final purchase are exclusively completed.
Strategic Focus on Retail and Growth
Glovo is prioritising the retail and grocery sectors for this initial launch, capturing the established habit of using AI for product research. Generative AI has driven a significant jump in retail traffic globally, so this first-mover advantage aims to meet customers where they are meeting Gen AI daily, and ensure it captures high-intent organic traffic as search behaviours evolve.
“We’re always looking for ways to meet our customers where they already are. Being available on Claude and ChatGPT means people can discover what Glovo has to offer as part of a natural conversation, with no friction. Glovo has always been about being the everyday app that provides choice and convenience, and this is another step in that direction”, said Shiro Theuri, Chief Technology Officer at Glovo.
How to look for products in the Glovo app through ChatGPT or Claude
- The user must sync ChatGPT or Claude with the Glovo app with the plug-in.
- Once synced, the user must type in @glovo followed by their request.
- The AI platform displays a carousel with 5 available options for the user.
- If the user wants to purchase any of the products or continue searching within the Glovo app, they must click “View on Glovo”, which will redirect the user to the Glovo app or website.
- After the order is confirmed, the store will prepare the item(s) and the courier will head up to the pick-up location. The user will receive the order in minutes.
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