Multi-million naira Almajiri Model School built by Jonathan govt. abandoned, rotting away | EduCeleb
Abdussalam Amoo
30th December 2018
When the President Goodluck Jonathan administration started the Almajiri Model School projects in 2010, it was to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria.
The project resulted in the construction and equipment of 157 model schools across the country. But eight years on, from Sokoto to Kano, Kaduna to Katsina, a number of these schools are now either in ruins or have been abandoned, as the second part of this investigation will show.
One of our most heart-wrenching findings is however in Katsina Statewhere one of such schools reported as completed is yet to admit its first setof pupils. Instead, it has been abandoned, and facilities there left to rotaway.
Located along Katsina Road, Dutsin-Ma in Katsina State, AlmajiriModel School, Dutsin-Ma, is now overgrown with weed even as its buildings andfacilities are collapsing.
Were it functional, it could have taken about 300 school-agedchildren off the streets. The Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted in2015 by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Nigerian governmentindicate that the population of out of school children in Nigeria hasrisen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million.
The result of that survey has not been officially released. But the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education (UBEC), Hammid Bobboyi, quoted its findings on October 4 at a briefing in Abuja ahead of the Northern Nigerian Traditional Rulers’ Conference on Out-of-School Children.
UBEC claims in its record that the school in Dutsin-Ma, like others, waslong completed and handed over to the Katsina State government for use.
This federal agency established under the 2004 Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act provides intervention roles for states and local governments in basic education.
“Almajiri” is derived from the Arabic word “Al-Muhajiroun”, meaningmigrants. The term is widely used in Northern Nigeria to refer to persons whotravel far from home in search of Islamic and Quranic knowledge.
Almajiri schools are also called Makarantun Allo (slate school),Tsangaya (Learning centre) and Ile-kewu (Arabic school in Yoruba)dependingon the context of the usage. They are also forms of Islamiyyah and Tahfeez(Qur’anic memorisation) schools.
Almajirai (plural) are said to constitute over 9 million of theout-of-school children. The Almajiri Education Programme, therefore, sought tohelp mainstream the Almajiri system into basic education and cut down thenumber of out-of-school children in the country.
Section 1 Subsection 3 (d) of Nigeria’s National Policy on Education published in 2013 states that “education is compulsory and a right of every Nigerian irrespective of gender, social status, religion, colour, ethnic background and any peculiar individual challenges.”
It appears that the purpose of establishing the Almajiri ModelSchool, Dutsin-Ma is defeated as its state shows the school was simplyabandoned after “completion”.
The fading fence wall painting is what any visitor would notice firstaside from the surroundings overgrown with weed. Beyond its gates are anunoccupied, decaying gatehouse and an administrative block that gave a soresight of what to expect in the inner buildings. Window louvres were clearlymissing, suggesting they were vandalised.
A man, Hassan Muhammad, who emerged from one of the inner buildingsintroduced himself as the guard of the facility. He was excited to receive avisit there after a long time. The man, believed to be in his sixties, said heis a casual worker employed by the local government authority to secure thefacility.
“The contractors were always coming before,” Mr Muhammad said.“But they stopped coming since 2015. The last time we saw them was when(Ibrahim) Shema was in power.”
Mr Shema, the immediate past governor of Katsina State, also hailsfrom Dutsin-Ma. He served for two terms between 2007 and 2015.
Mr Muhammad would later conduct our correspondent around the estimatedtwo-acre facility. Each building gave tell-tale signs of waste, destruction andtheft.
The guard said he regularly kills snakes and rodents in the desertedfacility. Before getting to each building, this reporter and his guide had tonavigate bushes. The floors of the paths had interlocking paver blocks butthese were not even exempted from the invasion of weeds.
A document EduCeleb.com obtained from UBEC categorisesthe school among the Model II Almajiri Model Schools. Model II schools are likestandard boarding schools, with facilities to accommodate many pupils.
Another set of documents indicate that facilities in such a school mustinclude blocks of classrooms, staff accommodation, an administrative block,toilets and laundry, two recitation halls, a hostel block.
But in the “completed” school in Dutsin-Ma, we saw officeswithout tables and chairs, a library with a lone damaged library table withoutbooks and chairs as well as a computer room without computers.
Meanwhile, bookshelves laid on the hallway of one building. A portion ofthe roof of the block was destroyed by thunderstorm almost a year earlier,according to Muhammad.
Adjacent the administrative blocks are the classroom blocks and arecitation hall, where a similar tale of abandonment was noticeable. No usablestudent tables and chairs were there except for a few broken ones.
Muhammad revealed to our correspondent that someone he identified simplyas ES (Education Secretary) ordered the transfer of a portion of the pupils’tables and chairs to another school within Dutsin-Ma town.
EduCeleb.com also observed that a portion of the classroom block had beenconverted into some sort of residence. The guard now lives there with his wifeand three children.
They converted two fifty-capacity classrooms into bedrooms. Close by wasa makeshift kitchen where the wife of the man cooks. The couple also utilised afew of the toilets near the place as their store.
Aside from the guard and his family, our correspondent noticed thatanother classroom was locked. Muhammad said another man who was a staff atDutsin-Ma LG secretariat was cleared by the ES to also take up residence there.
The once-roofed dormitories had no single plank on it. Its wardrobecompartments, electrification connections, mattresses and beddings were not insight. The guard would later disclose that the building, located towards theback of the compound, was looted by thieves three months earlier.
When our correspondent asked of his whereabouts while that happened, hesaid he was away and did not realise that until much later.
Adjourning the hostel block by about three metres to the right is whatcould have been an extension of the hostel or the Mallam’s residence. The thickbush encircling it was taller than the bungalow itself. Like the otherbuildings in the compound, rust had left most of the doors there stiff, makingit impossible to open.
Attempts to verify some of the claims made by Mr Muhammad were futile asofficers at the Dutsin-Ma Local Government Education Authority declined tocomment.
When asked about the Almajiri Model School, Dutsin-Ma, the Desk Officerin charge of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Katsina State Universal BasicEducation Board, Muhammad Bello, said UBEC was yet to hand over the school tothe Katsina SUBEB.
“I am aware of the dilapidated structures,” Mr Bello said.
But in a response to a Freedom of Information request earlier sentby EduCeleb.com, UBEC said all model almajiri schoolsbuilt by the federal government were handed over to host states.
“Since the model schools have been handed over to the states, otherrequests could be obtained from them through their State Universal Education Boards(SUBEBs) and the FCT,” Baba Sali Song, the special adviser to the UBECexecutive secretary, Mr Bobboyi, said in the letter.
A part of the information we sought in the FOI request was details ofprocurements for the Almajiri Model Schools.  Mr Song failed to respond tothat part.
During a follow-up visit to his office on Monday, October 15, Bobboyidirected Mr Song to provide necessary information about payments to contractorsfor the project. Still, the official failed to carry out that directive.
He only told thisreporter, “As far as we are concerned, all contractors have been paid. We arenot owing any of the contractors.”
This report was completed with support from the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and the McArthur Foundation.