Katsina ‘Deports’ Out-of-school Street Children To Home States

The Katsina State Government has expressed worries over the alarming number of Almajiri children who roam the streets of the state as child beggars.

The state government said it was beginning the process of repatriating the out-of-school children back to their home states.

SaharaReporters learnt that the state government established a repatriation project which would be carried out by a committee established by the state government to first determine how many the Almajiri children were.

“The Katsina state government has begun the repatriation of ‘Almajirai’ street child beggars back to their states of origin. The programme started with the repatriation of 20 children to Kaduna State which was confirmed to be their state of origin. Katsina has one of the highest number of out-of-school children in northern Nigeria.

“The project is part of the work of the committee established by Katsina State government to establish the number of almajirai in the state,” a state official told SaharaReporters.

In 2019, the Federal Ministry of Education said there were over 10.2 million children who are out of school in the country and roaming the streets.

The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, stated then that the Federal Government planned the enrollment of two million of such kids in school in 2020, which would be implemented if N3 billion was committed by 19 states.

PHOTONEWS: Katsina State Government Begins Illegal Repatriation Of Almajiri Children Street Beggars | Sahara Reporters
SEE MORE PHOTOS: https://t.co/RV6EaKolMK pic.twitter.com/BgCClzpWhD

— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) May 5, 2021

Advertisement

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, had also promised that the government desired that two million school-age children be taken off the street every year for the next five years.

Despite the promises, the number of Nigeria’s out-of-school children keeps increasing, drawing national and international condemnation to the menace.

Source: Sahara Reporters