• Starvation, death, grip elderly retirees amid economic hardship
• Broken promises, bureaucratic neglect leave pensioners in despair
• The Silent Thieves of Twilight:Arithmetic of Nigeria’s Pension Fraud

By Olatunji OLOLADE, Associate Editor

Pensioner taking first aid in Osun, after he slumped during screening exercise at the state’s pensions office.

Sunday Oboite hit the floor with a hard thud, his clatter reverberating through the large hall—a threnody for those who still clung to life, while dying to receive their pension.

At 1:20 pm, Oboite fell, not the thump of flesh on cold concrete, but the crash of hope shattering on the granite of a broken vow.

The 75-year-old had been waiting, silently, with hundreds of fellow retirees who had gathered in the dimly-lit hall of the Oredo Local Council Secretariat in Benin City, Edo State, to receive their meagre pensions after a ten-month delay.

But as the sun arched high over the Secretariat, Oboite slumped forward, his body no longer able to bear the burden of waiting.

His fellow retirees scrambled—some to help, others fleeing, as if falling was contagious.

At precisely 1:38 pm, doctors would confirm what every pensioner in that hall already knew: Oboite was dead, not from a stroke, nor from an unforeseen illness, but from starvation—starved of sustenance, of both food and dignity.

His death arrived as a brutal punctuation to the long, agonising sentence that was his final years, triggering a question that pierced the heart of Nigeria’s moral fibre: “Must the government starve its elderly to death?”

Oboite had served the government for decades, working in the Works Department of the Oredo Local Council. Like many of his colleagues, he had believed in the promise that at the end of his service, his twilight years would be spent in peace, supported by the pension he had earned. Instead, he found himself trapped in a cruel purgatory, waiting in vain for months, as hunger gnawed at his insides. The pension arrears, which had become his lifeline, dangled just out of reach, a cruel tease that would eventually cost him his life.

Late Sunday Oboite, 75, collapsed and died during a screening exercise for pensioners at the Oredo local council in Edo.

The morning of his death, Oboite had arrived at the secretariat at 8 am, hoping to be screened and finally paid his dues. But bureaucracy, as always, was the slowest-moving beast. After hours of waiting, pensioners were directed to a hall a hundred meters away. Oboite, too weak to walk any further, had chosen to wait behind, his body betraying him in its exhaustion. By 1:20 pm, he had collapsed. By 1:38 pm, the doctor’s cold pronouncement: Dead.

“It was hunger that killed him,” John Eweka, a fellow retiree, whispered bitterly, his voice cracking like old leather in the heat. “Many of us can no longer afford to eat. We begged for what is ours, and they denied us even that.”

Four hundred and fifty four days later, Oboite’s body still laid cold in the morgue, abandoned like the promises of the government that failed him. His family could not afford the burial costs, and his colleagues, equally impoverished, could do nothing to help. Even the eventual promise of financial support from the Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki felt hollow, a posthumous mockery for a man who had died of neglect.

A History Written in Blood and Tears

Before Oboite, there was Olusa Ayodele, an 80-year-old man who collapsed under the weight of government indifference. Ayodele had retired from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, only to face a fate worse than the toils of his youth. On October 10, 2011, Ayodele traveled a painful journey of hours from his village of Akunnu-Akoko to Akure, where he was due to undergo yet another “verification” for pension arrears that had long been owed. Fevered and weak, Ayodele arrived at the verification centre only to vomit twice—a grim harbinger of the end. His son, Deji, cried for help, but none came.

Like Oboite, Ayodele died waiting, his body abandoned on the bare floor for hours as his fellow retirees quietly maintained their spots on the queue, heartbroken yet hard-pressed to complete their screening.

Ayodele’s death, like Oboite’s, was a slow, bureaucratic “murder” executed in the guise of “verification” and administrative delays.

Nigeria’s retired workforce, now shadows of their former selves, suffer these in the twilight of their existence. The reality is, however, darker than any statistic could capture, with over one million retirees left stranded, awaiting pensions that may never come.

Some retirees protesting at the African Alliance Plc Lagos office over its failure to remit their pensions.

The Curse of African Alliance

Many retirees are forced to endure a life of misery and starvation as imposed by systemic and administrative failures. One of the most egregious examples of the system’s failures can be found in the recent collapse of the African Alliance Insurance Plc. Pensioners, who trusted the company with their life savings, now find themselves destitute as the company falters under the weight of insolvency.

For months, retirees flocked to African Alliance offices, hoping for a glimmer of hope. Instead, they found the doors locked, the offices deserted, and their pensions vanished into the ether. “We have been abandoned,” lamented Monsurat Idris, a retired teacher from Dopemu, Lagos. Like so many others, she had switched to an annuity plan, promised “salary for life,” only to watch helplessly as her entitlements dwindled into nothingness.

Idris recalled how African Alliance’s representatives persuaded her and fellow retirees to dump the programmed withdrawal plan recommended by the state government for the firm’s annuity plan. They even encouraged several retirees to borrow money while waiting for their entitlements. When those entitlements finally arrived, most of it vanished into debt repayment, leaving retirees even poorer than before. The once-thriving insurance firm now stands as a monument to failure, with its top executives deserting their posts while pensioners weep over unpaid claims.

Musiliu Ganiu, a retired teacher from Lagos, while reliving his nightmare with the insurer, disclosed that since March, many retirees haven’t received a dime from the firm. He lamented that African Alliance promised him and his colleagues lifelong payments. But the insurer is now in distress, having shut down its headquarters, its promises dissolving into thin air.

In August 2023, pensioners in Lagos State, under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), made a desperate appeal to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to come to their aid. In a letter dated August 20, 2023, the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), Lagos State Chapter, lamented their unpaid pensions dating back to 2007, leaving retirees impoverished.

Stripped of gratuities and forced to subsist on meagre payments, many like a former Director on grade level 17, now receive only N70,000 monthly, while lower-level workers earn as little as N12,000—or none at all in the case of those on grade levels 1 to 4.

“We receive an average of ten notifications of death of our members on a monthly basis,” the union wrote, underscoring the severity of the situation. They attribute these deaths to the economic hardship faced by retirees, who are unable to keep up with rising living costs, especially in light of the recent fuel subsidy removal.

The letter, signed by the NUP’s Chairman, Omisande Michael and General Secretary, Olagbaye Johnson, included a plea for immediate action, including the urgent payment of outstanding pensions dating back to 2020, a review of the pension payment system, and the reinstatement of gratuity for all categories of workers under the CPS.

Subsequently, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in a tweet on February 11, 2024, announced that Lagos would begin payment of N3.1 billion to over 1,000 pensioners under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

Abebi Adebola, a retired school administrator and Headteacher in Lagos said that, so far, Lagos State has performed most commendably among the 36 states of the federation, in the way it treats its pensioners. Save for some occasional hiccups, retirees receive their money at due time.

According to her, some of her colleagues who retired in 2012 were luckier as they received 50 per cent initial lump payment of their entitlement in 2013, one year after their retirement. However, retirees like Adebola, who retired in 2015, had to wait for a gruelling 46 months before they received their gratuity. When they did, they were paid a paltry 25 percent of their entitlement.

The scale of the tragedy stretches far beyond individual stories. In Kwara State, over a million pensioners, precisely 1,126,000 retirees died between January 2015 and February 2017, according to the state chapter of the National Union of Pensioners (NUP) – a staggering toll that reflects the sheer depth of the crisis.

The life of a Nigerian pensioner is indeed, one bitter struggle, where survival hinges on a meager stipend of N500, N10,560, N25,000, or at best, N70,000 per month. Even this paltry amount arrives unpredictably. “The pension offers little succor,” laments Florence Alogba, 62. “It is never enough, especially with the rising cost of food.” The delay in payment compounds the hardship. “By the time the stipend comes,” said Foluso Okin, a retired principal, “it goes toward debts—medical bills, school fees, loans. We never enjoy it. They said a teacher’s reward is in heaven. But I want my reward on this earth.”

For some, the burden of an unemployed family adds to the weight. Idowu Ojo, a retired teacher, recounted the anguish of his unemployed sons: “My daughter’s husband works, but the whole family depends on her. We try not to be a burden, but the government’s failure forces our hand.”

Beyond the unpaid pensions, retirees face another torment: corruption. In southwestern Nigeria, retired teachers must bribe pension staff to process their files. “We pay N50,000 just to have our files treated,” revealed a retired primary school teacher, pleading anonymity.

Worse still is the Ebonyi State scandal, where extortionists in the audit department reportedly demanded money to process the files of retirees. One of the retirees who was not pleased with the new arrangement, Benedict Anyigor, said that he had already paid N50,000 but his file was withheld by the accused officials of the State’s Audit Department.

“I was supposed to be paid N4,787,081. Out of this amount, government has paid me N800,000 but one of the officials in the state audit and his colleague who have been processing my file for payment, said I should settle them with 200,000 out of this amount for immediate payment or my file will not be sent to the Head of Service for the payment.

“I have already given them N50,000 out of the N200,000. I told them that I will pay the remaining N150, 000 after receiving full payment of the gratuity from the government which they have started paying. But he increased the amount of settlement to N500,000 and insisted that I must pay him the amount before he releases my file to the Head of Service for the payment and I don’t have the amount. I retired as a Level 8, Step 15 officer at the General Hospital, Onueke in Ezza South Local Government Area of the state,” he said.

Reacting to the allegations, the state’s Auditor General at the period, Innocent Nweda, vowed to dismiss the culprits. He promised to investigate the alleged scandal stressing that in 2012, about four principal members of staff of the Audit were dismissed for a similar crime.

A larger gale of corruption sweeps through the pensions office of the Federal Civil Service. Nigerians won’t forget in a hurry, the scandalous case of Abdulrasheed Maina, the former Director of the Customs, Immigration, and Prisons Pensions Office (CIPPO) and Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT). In 2013, Maina fled the country after being implicated in a N2.1 billion pension fraud by the EFCC. Despite public outrage, he was secretly reinstated and promoted under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, only to flee again to avoid prosecution.

Maina was eventually sentenced to eight years in prison after a two-year trial. Justice Okon Abang criticised the United Bank of Africa (UBA) and Fidelity Bank, accusing them of being “conduits” for the fraud and suggesting they should have been charged. The court found that Maina used fake accounts, with the help of relatives in the banking sector, to siphon funds from pensioners, many of whom died in poverty.

Justice Abang condemned Maina’s lavish lifestyle, noting he lived in luxury abroad, while pensioners suffered. He emphasised that Maina’s salary of just over N300,000 could never have amounted to the N2 billion he stole, calling the case a reflection of the moral decay in society. The judge urged for national reform and stronger action against dishonesty.

And still, the system remains unchanged. The National Pension Commission (NPC), created to oversee the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), has failed to enforce its own regulations. Many states have not even adopted the CPS, instead continuing under the archaic Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS), where pensions are either delayed or denied outright.

The promises of reform—like those made by African Alliance—ring hollow in the ears of retirees. NAICOM, the industry regulator, has issued ultimatums, demanding that pension fund administrators clear their debts and settle arrears, but the threats go unenforced. Instead, retirees are left to live—or die—without the money they were guaranteed.

It is a nationwide plague, a systemic failure that leaves millions of retirees in the grip of hunger, illness, and despair. The Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), introduced in 2004 and amended in 2014, was supposed to bring transparency and security to the retirement process. Yet, 20 years later, the reality has fallen far short of that promise.

Some members of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners during a protest over non-remittance of their pension in Lagos.

The Arithmetic of Pension Fraud in Nigeria

The arithmetic of pension fraud in Nigeria unfolds like a tragic tale of exploitation, where Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) weave intricate schemes to rob pensioners of their hard-earned savings. These institutions, entrusted with securing the future of retirees, instead cloak their actions in secrecy, siphoning wealth from the vulnerable. To unravel the mechanisms by which they prey upon the unsuspecting – hidden behind veils of fees, mismanagement, and outright theft – is to embark on a jarring journey into the bowels of an arithmetical con.

Beneath the surface of every pensioner’s account lies an unseen hand, quietly taking its due, argued Khadijah Ilemobaye, an Actuarian scientist cum insurance auditor. Explaining further, she said, a pensioner, with ₦10 million in savings, unknowingly surrenders 1.5% of that sum each year—₦150,000 in annual fees that slip through the cracks of undisclosed charges. Over a decade, this amounts to ₦1.5 million, silently drained without the pensioner’s knowledge, a slow bleed of their future security.

The PFAs, like the proverbial masters of illusion, invest pensioners’ funds in low-yield government securities. While these investments generate meager returns, the PFAs impose high management fees, further eroding the value of these already modest gains. Imagine a pension fund of ₦5 million, invested in a bond yielding a mere 6%. The pensioner earns ₦300,000 per year, yet the PFA takes 2%—₦100,000—as its fee. The pensioner is left with only ₦200,000, believing the returns are better than they are, while the true cost is hidden beneath layers of financial jargon and opaque reports.

In the dark recesses of the system, corrupt officials conjure “ghost pensioners” into existence. These phantom figures, fictitious names on payrolls, are used to divert vast sums of money. A PFA managing 100,000 real pensioners might fabricate 10,000 ghost pensioners, each assigned ₦500,000 in fraudulent pensions. In this spectral arithmetic, ₦5 billion vanishes, spirited away into the coffers of those who feed on the trust of the system, leaving the pension fund diminished by this insidious scam.

Time, in the hands of the PFAs, often becomes a weapon of control as payments due to pensioners are deliberately delayed, extending the period during which the PFA controls the funds. A pensioner awaiting ₦5 million may face a delay of six months, during which the PFA earns an 8% annual interest. In this short span, the PFA collects ₦200,000 in interest, profiting from the pensioner’s enforced patience. This delay not only disrupts lives but compounds the injustice by allowing the PFA to gain from withholding what rightfully belongs to another.

With monthly contributions flowing steadily, some PFAs quietly divert portions into their own pockets. A pensioner contributing ₦50,000 each month may find that ₦10,000 is secretly rerouted to fraudulent accounts. Over 10 years—120 months—this diversion amounts to ₦1.2 million stolen from a single pensioner. With 10,000 pensioners in their grasp, the PFAs can embezzle a staggering ₦12 billion, a grand theft concealed in the monotony of monthly deductions.

For some pensioners, the final blow comes at the moment of retirement. The gratuity, the lump sum meant to provide for their twilight years, is intercepted. A group of retirees expecting ₦1 billion in gratuities may find only half paid out, as corrupt officials siphon away ₦500 million. The pensioners, left with half their entitlement, face a future diminished by the greed of those entrusted with their care.

For one pensioner, the toll of these fraudulent practices is devastating. Over a decade, they lose: ₦1.5 million in hidden administrative fees, ₦1 million in excessive investment charges, ₦1.2 million siphoned from their contributions, ₦200,000 lost to delayed payments. In total, ₦3.9 million is stolen from a single pensioner over 10 years. Multiply this across thousands, and the scale of the fraud balloons into billions of naira—an unfathomable betrayal of trust.

Some pensioners protesting over their unpaid entitlements in Lagos.

Nigeria’s Pensions Animal Farm: Four legs good, two legs bad

Like the tidal waves that slowly erode the shore, Nigeria’s pension crisis has been silently consuming its elderly for decades. The promises that once gleamed like golden dreams have become rusted, hollowed out by legal loopholes, hidden charges, and predatory practices. Nowhere is this betrayal more stark than in the government’s imposition of a shocking 25% cap on initial withdrawals, a cruel twist that leaves retirees with only a quarter of the savings they’ve painstakingly accumulated over decades.

The full promises of a dignified retirement dissolve like fog at dawn, leaving only a fraction of the anticipated savings for the elderly to live on. Imagine spending decades working, contributing to a pension fund, believing in the promise of security, only to discover that when the moment comes to access your savings, you are handed a mere quarter of what you are owed. The remaining 75%? Locked away, dripped out in agonisingly small sums over the years.

Introduced under the guise of ensuring long-term financial stability, the 25% cap has instead become a death sentence for retirees. While pensioners who spent about 35 years in the service of their country wallow in abject poverty occasioned by their inability to access their benefits, former governors and deputies—who served for a mere four or eight years—are ushered into retirement with lavish gifts, the likes of which would make kings envious.

Until recently, Lagos State stood as a stark example of this paradox. Enshrined in the Public Office Holder (Payment of Pension) Law No 11, within the official Gazette of 2007, lies a provision that guarantees a governor, upon leaving office, a lifetime pension equal to the full salary of the sitting governor—that is, N7.7 million annually. The former governor is also granted free healthcare for himself and his family, six brand-new cars every three years, and an array of allowances fit for royalty: 300% of the annual salary for furniture (N23.3m), 10% for house maintenance (N778,296), 20% for utilities (N1.5m), and 30% for car upkeep (N2.3m).

But the largesse doesn’t end there. A former governor enjoys the luxury of an entertainment allowance (N778,296) and a personal assistant earning a quarter of the governor’s own salary (N1.9m). Domestic workers—a cook, a steward, a gardener, and more—are placed at their service, with their positions even made pensionable. For security, eight policemen and two state security officers stand sentinel for life.

In the wake of protracted outrage over the bumper package, however, the Lagos State House of Assembly, in 2022, amended the state Pension Law for former governors and other political office holders, reducing their benefits and emoluments by 50 per cent. The House expunged the provision of houses in Abuja and Lagos for former governors, Sequel to the presentation of a report by the House Committee on Establishment, Training and Pension.

It further recommended a reduction in the number of vehicles to be made available to former governors and their deputies as the House Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, suggested that the former governors should get two vehicles (a car and a van) instead of the three recommended by the committee, and advised that the cars be changed every four years instead of the three years previously recommended by the report.

Elsewhere, Delta State offers its ex-governors a fully furnished duplex in any state of their choosing, and also full medical care for their families, two vehicles (including a utility car) every two years, and a protective entourage of armed officers. Fifteen days of annual vacation in any part of the world are but another pearl on this string of luxurious benefits. Meanwhile, in Kano, the former leaders are gifted with a six-bedroom mansion and healthcare for life, while Ekiti provides its retired governors with a plush five-bedroom duplex, two cars, a pilot vehicle to be replaced every three years, and 300% of the annual salary for furniture.

In Rivers State, Celestine Omehia, whose governorship was nullified by the Supreme Court, still walked away with a princely sum of N695 million in entitlements.

Across at least 22 states, from Oyo to Zamfara, Kwara to Rivers, similar stories echo: ex-governors and their deputies luxuriate in the fruits of their brief tenures, their coffers brimming with the spoils of jumbo pensions, while civil servants who toiled for decades in the nation’s service languish, unpaid and forgotten.

At the federal level, the story turns no less extravagant. In the 2023 budget, a staggering N13 billion was earmarked for the pensions of former Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Heads of State, retired chiefs of service, permanent secretaries, and heads of agencies. There is no record, none at all, of any of the recipients lamenting unpaid pensions, no whisper of delay in their vast entitlements.

Meanwhile, the retired civil servants, who dedicated 35 years of their lives to the nation, wait in vain for their dues. Against the backdrop of the malady, the scales of justice occasionally tilted on the side of truth. In 2019, the Federal High Court in Lagos, under the gavel of Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo, declared these life pensions for ex-governors and deputies illegal, immoral even. The Attorney General was ordered to take swift legal action to abolish these laws and recover the ill-gotten funds.

Previously, in the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) v Attorney-General of the Federation, (Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1497/2017 and Alhaji Garba Umar v Taraba State Government (Suit No: NICN/JOS/26/2016, the Federal High Court and the National Industrial Court declared as null and void the payment of pension and gratuity to former governors and deputy governors.

Senators Gbenga Daniel and Ibrahim Dankwambo, both former governors, have also directed the governments of their respective  states, Ogun and Gombe respectively, to stop paying them a governor’s pension since they are currently receiving salaries and allowances in the National Assembly just as the governments of Kwara, Imo and Zamfara States have abolished the payment of the controversial pensions to their former governors and their deputies.

“We call on other state governments to abolish the pension as soon as possible. Nigeria can no longer afford to pay scandalous pension to ex-governors while workers are owed arrears of meagre pensions,” said Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana (SAN).

However the payment of the lavish pensions for ex-governors and deputies continue unabated.

Retirees in Bayelsa march on the streets to protest their unpaid entitlements.

Navigating the Trap

On September 17, 2024, the National Pension Commission (PenCom) announced that total pension assets have reached N20.79 trillion. However, only seven states—Lagos, Kaduna, Delta, Ekiti, Osun, Edo, and Jigawa—and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have fully implemented the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

PenCom’s Acting Director General, Omolola Oloworararan, highlighted the steady growth of pension funds, noting that states had remitted over N236.7 billion between January 2020 and mid-2024. She emphasized the benefits of adopting the CPS, such as access to pension funds for infrastructure projects through state bonds. Lagos, Niger, Osun, Ekiti, and Delta have successfully issued state bonds backed by pension funds, with projects like the Lekki-Ikoyi Bridge in Lagos benefiting from this funding.

PenCom, she said, is focused on engaging 26 states with CPS or CDBS laws that have yet to begin implementation, aiming to ensure that all retirees receive timely benefits. The commission is also working to resolve accrued rights payments and ensure pension increments in line with the Nigerian Constitution, stated Oloworararan.

Regardless of her sunny assurances, Oloworararan may find it difficult convincing millions of pensioners caught in a maelstrom of unpaid benefits and neglect.

A higher proportion (70%) of the retired, aged, and ageing population in Nigeria earns N50,000 per month or less or nothing, according to a study sample by Dataphyte and JAIRAA. At this income level, the retired, aged, and ageing (RAAs) live below the global poverty line. According to the World Bank, the poverty line is estimated at $2.15 or N3,190 per day (at N1,484 per dollar).

For those nearing retirement, the lesson is clear: vigilance is the only armour. Nigerians must demand transparency from pension fund administrators, refusing to be lured by the false promises of higher returns, advised Usman Shoyode, an insurance auditor and financial risk analyst. To PFAs, he suggested that retirement savings must be diversified and spread more transparently across multiple funds to mitigate the risk of loss.

Above all, the 25% cap must be challenged, both in the law courts and in the hearts of the people, who must demand that their government provide the full measure of what they are owed.

It is also very essential to research and choose pension fund administrators (PFAs) carefully. Avoid companies with a history of delayed payments or unresolved claims, and opt for those with a proven track record of stability. Furthermore, retirees may consider diversifying their retirement investments. Relying solely on the pension system can be a recipe for disaster, as the stories above illustrate. Personal savings, real estate investments, or even small-scale business ventures can provide additional security in a country where government promises are often as fragile as the lives they are meant to protect.

As the sun sets on the lives of those who once carried Nigeria on their shoulders, it becomes ever more urgent for the nation to confront the grim reality of its pension system. Because for every Ayodele who falls, and for every Oboite whose heart gives out, the very soul of the nation weakens. It was on a sunless day that they both fell, into the abyss of a failed promise. Their last breaths churning against the silence of those who watched their struggle and did nothing. The aged civil servants, who once who tilled the earth and built roads for the living, got railroaded, destitute and disenchanted, into an early grave.

• Deserted by parents, bruised by the streets, homeless almajirai suffer a raw deal
• The reduction of a noble Islamic culture to an exploitative venture
• Three of every six almajirai die in northern Nigeria, 50 percent perish before age 16 – Study

 By Olatunji OLOLADE, Associate Editor

In the shadows of Kebbi’s Dukku hills, lurks a tragedy etched in clay and sorrow. It loiters about the sandpit sodden with the blood of underage boys: Muhammad Bawando, Musa Kambaza, Dan-sayyada Kambaza, Abu Takai, Nasir Cheferu, Barmo Babanda, Kalije Bawanda, and Yakubu Aminu – eight almajirai who went to the mountains to dig for clay.

On Saturday, April 20, 2024, each shovel of dirt brought them closer to their goal; their hands stained with the rich, red earth, they shared dreams of new walls, sturdy roofs, and the warmth of a hut they could call their home.

But fate had a cruel twist in store. High above, perched precariously on the edge of the quarry, a massive boulder teetered on the brink of disaster. Unseen and unheard, it waited, biding its time until the moment was ripe.

And then, with a deafening roar, the earth shook as the boulder broke free, hurtling down the steep incline with unstoppable force. The boys barely had time to register the impending doom before the boulder crashed down, trapping them 10 metres beneath its weight.

Dust and debris filled the air as their screams pierced the silence, desperate cries for help that went unanswered. Surrounded by throttling darkness, the boys probably felt for each other, their voices fading to whispers, in the darkness of their tomb.

Nobody heard their dying cries. Nobody saw them writhe and resign to their final fate. That fateful afternoon, the blazing sun belched irrepressible misery and death as the corpses of the eight pupils of the Malam Dan-Umma Qur’anic School at Bayan Science, Badariya, Birnin Kebbi Local Government Area (LGA) of Kebbi State were exhumed from the rubble.

The proprietor of the school, Malam Dan Umar, said he had assigned the pupils to go on top of the hill near the school to excavate clay and gravel to mend the holes inside their rooms against an expected flood. Sobbing profusely, Umar admitted that in the process, a heavy chunk of the laterite fell on them, leaving seven dead on the spot and one hospitalised until his eventual death.

“It was sad for me. I was still in the house when someone called to tell me the bad news. I still find it difficult to believe,” said Umar.

Residents around the area said that apart from using some caved areas of the hill for convenience, the pupils used its mud to build a haven where they occasionally rested.

Barely one month before the tragedy, the Kebbi State Government disclosed its intention to streamline the almajiri system to conform with the formal system of western education.

The Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Muhammad Sani-Aliyu, identified the “Almajiri Integrated Education” as a unit under his ministry saddled with regulation and improvement of the almajiri system of education.

“The unit is carrying out a demography of Islamiyya and Almajiri schools to identify the age and number of pupils, their various origins, parents and their living conditions for appropriate actions,” he said.

Almajiri Integrated Education: Between farce and reality

The Kebbi State government’s Almajiri Integrated Education scheme is hardly the first of its kind to be initiated in response to challenges posed by the almajiri system of education.

In April 2012, the former President Goodluck Jonathan-led Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), launched a national education policy initiative known as the Almajiri Integrated Model School (AIMS), to integrate Qur’anic schools into conventional schools with modern curriculums and provide skill-based education to the almajirai.

The AIMS initiative was also intended to increase educational access, specifically for the about 13.2 million “out of school children” (UNICEF) in northern Nigeria by providing classroom facilities, uniforms, books, and feeding programs. The move was also geared to assist each State of the federation to implement the Education for All (EFA) scheme and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Jonathan’s administration reportedly spent N15 billion on the establishment 400 Almajiri model schools with the aim of integrating the traditional system of learning Islamic education with western education. The AIMS initiative also rebuilt about 36 schools, the first batch of which covered the 19 northern states and Edo.

In spite of these efforts, the enrollment and attendance rates have remained low in these newly reconstructed model schools for various reasons.

A vice principal at one of the schools in Kaduna State stated that the government even though student enrolment increased at the state government’s introduction of free education as part of the AIMS system, attendance has reduced as parents and their wards exhibit sustained apathy for the initiative.

Another major impediment to the programme is the lack of adequate support from the states’ governments. Successive administrations have starved AIMS of funding and essential human resources. Eventually, many of the schools fall into disrepair even as its supposed beneficiaries, the almajirai, desert the classrooms to beg for alms on the streets.

Minors at the mercy of the streets…

Many almajirai, who are supposed to benefit from the AIMS scheme are left to roam on the streets. One such almajiri is Abdulaziz Abdulhamid. The 12-year-old’s day begins at dawn in Minna, Niger State, with a prayer whispered into the morning light.

In a subdued tenor, resonant with childhood innocence and the burdens of a life that has aged him beyond his years, Abdulhamid disclosed how his parents, grappling with poverty in Nassarawa, handed him over to Mallam Ali Usman, an itinerant Qur’anic teacher, with the hope of securing religious education for him. Alongside three other boys, Abdulhamid embarked on a journey that would lead him into the heart of the almajiri system.

The system involves sending boys, typically aged 4 to 12, to distant locations for religious study under nomadic Islamic scholars. For families like Abdulhamid’s, who are unable to afford formal schooling, this system seems a lifeline. However, the idyllic vision of pious learning often shatters as these children, instead of being sheltered by their supposed guardians, find themselves thrust into the streets, begging for survival.

Minna, with its bustling markets and teeming streets, for instance, has replaced Abdulhamid’s classroom. Instead of the Quran, he clutches a bowl; instead of lessons, he memorises the faces of those who might spare him a coin or a morsel of food. Each day is a test of endurance, each night a lesson in resilience. Abdulhamid’s existence is a far cry from the educational aspirations his parents had for him. The Qur’anic verses he recites under harsh circumstances are intermixed with pleas for alms, a stark testament to the intersection of faith and destitution in his newfound world.

Abdulhamid’s reality is shared by an estimated nine million (of 13.2 million out-of-school kids) almajiri children across northern Nigeria. These boys constitute about 81 percent of the country’s out-of-school children, a staggering statistic that underscores the scope of this crisis. While parents believe they are fulfilling a religious obligation, the children often become collateral in a system that is underfunded and overwhelmed. Many of these children have been forcibly conscripted as child soldiers in the spate of kidnappings, banditry and other terror attacks across the country.

The Mallams, who are supposed to guide and educate, frequently lack resources themselves, compelling their wards into the streets to beg, the proceeds of which fund their sparse living conditions and educational materials.

Hussein Muhammed endures a similar fate. A typical day for the 10-year-old begins at 4.00 a.m. with prayers and a Qur’anic recitation and ends at 10 p.m. with another Qur’anic recitation. In between, he spends seven hours begging on the streets of Damboa in Borno State.

The 10-year-old steps out at 6 a.m. immediately after Fajr prayer, every day, and returns around noon. He engages in Quranic recitation with 26 other boys under the tutelage of Mallam Kabir, in whose care his parent left him at age seven. They recite the Quran till Zuhr prayer (around 1.30 – 2 p.m.).

Then they return to the streets, begging for money and food from strangers and familiar faces in the neighbourhood.

Like Muhammed, Idrisu, eight, was entrusted with the care of Mallam Kabir by his parents immediately after he clocked seven years of age. But while Muhammed’s parents handed him over to Mallam Kabir in their village in Mahadiya, Yobe, two days after the Eid il Fitri festival of 2021, Idrisu’s parents gave him out via a proxy, his paternal uncle, who happened to be friends with Mallam Kabir.

“I miss my father. I miss mother. I miss my baby sister, Khadijah. I miss home,” said the 10-year-old, recalling the sad evening, when he was handed out to Mallam Kabir.

“My mother cried very much. Big mother (first wife) cried too. They begged baba to let me stay till the following Sallah festival but he refused,” said Muhammed.

Through his recall, the 10-year-old’s mind unfurled like a maze of harrowing realities; sorrow flowered nebulously from its fragile precincts as he relived the carnage of emotions and parental rejection that rendered him homeless in a strange land, at the mercy of a roving Mallam.

On his part, Idrisu dreams of returning home before the Sallah celebrations, later this year. “My mother will come for me,” he said, enthusiastically.

“She will,” affirmed Muhammed, in the tenor of a foster brother, who knows better than to dampen the spirit of his beloved sibling even though he lives in denial.

“Denial is a phase that many almajirai go through. First, they are broken and dejected by their sudden departure from home. Most times, they are taken far away from home to prevent them from returning soon after they leave. If they migrate to live elsewhere within the same city or state, they eventually begin to plot their return back home sooner than expected. But if taken far away from home, across state borders, they eventually accept their fate and resign to their new life as almajiri,” said Hajaratu Bello, a social worker and contract staff with UN multilateral agencies.

Why almajiranci thrives

Poverty is a major cause of almajiranci. Associate Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna, Salim Bashir Magashi, argued that, traditionally, African societies cherished large families, considering children assets. The progress of an agrarian family, for instance, depended on its size. A large family seldom required paid labour to work on its farmland. As a duty, every member of the family participated in farm labour and even helped other members of the community as a neighbourly gesture – which is reciprocated.

For this reason, men married as many wives as was permissible. However, the society became capitalist and individualistic, owing to cultural imperialism by Western civilisation and its attendant traits – the use of money as a medium to get goods and services affected the erstwhile communal and egalitarian societies fostered by traditional African families.

The size of the family, in time, became a burden to family heads, who must provide the necessaries of life to the entire household. Hence, parents sent their children or wards away to seek knowledge, thus reducing their familial responsibilities.

Many almajirai emerge from these family divide. On the other hand, children from affluent families rarely left the comfort of their homes for such purpose; whenever they did, the families made proper arrangements for the children’s welfare, said Magashi.

There is also a lack of political will by the northern elite to address the issue because they fear it might result in a loss of political advantage during national elections.

“Many of them fear offending the people, who have been known to scoff at organised attempts to promote family planning. We also mustn’t forget that these almajirai are often deployed as political capital by northern politicians during national elections. These are some of the reasons that we can’t resolve our almajiri problem in Northern Nigeria,” said Adamu Aliyu, a Kebbi-based teacher and sociological researcher.

What Islam prescribes

Islam prescribes that the primary legal and moral duty of parents is to take care of the welfare of their children, to provide them with food, shelter, security, health, education. Parents are also instructed to instill morals into their wards, to the best of their abilities.

Thus, memorising the Qur’an, which is largely what an almajiri does, is a desirable (mustahab) act. It is not compulsory for every Muslim, though it is encouraged, but because of bandwagon following (and of course poverty), most parents would rather trade their compulsory duty (wajib) for a desirable

one (mustahab).

The Hausa word almajiri was derived from the Arabic term

almuhajir, meaning ‘a migrant.’ In a Nigerian context, it could mean a boarding student of Islamic studies; a student learning the science and truth of the Qur’an, as revealed by Almighty Allah, while committing the text to memory.

In Hausa, almajiri means ‘child-student’; almajirai is its plural, and almajiranci is the process or practice of learning, traveling, and all things that come with travel.

The school itself is called makarantar alio or tsangaya in Hausa. Historically, it was rooted in Muslims’ religious obligations to learn the Qur’an and acquire knowledge for this world and the hereafter.

Types of almajiri

According to Jimoh Amzat a Professor of Medical Sociology and Social Problems at the Department of Sociology, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, it is pertinent to distinguish three sets of almajirai. The first set of almajirai is sent to the urban centre to live with an Islamic scholar (Mallam) permanently until the completion of their Islamic education. Those almajirai are generally given in trust to a resident mallam but they have to fend for themselves and may not return until they graduate. Another category may return to their parents during the raining season for farming activities. The last category migrates from rural areas with their Islamic scholars during the dry season to the urban centres to return to rural areas for learning and farming in the raining season. However, majority of them, now live on the streets and attend lessons according to their whims.

The almajirais schools are built differently from orthodox or modern Islamic schools. Classes are held early in the mornings and late afternoons, allowing the boys to roam and beg on the street, through noon and late evening. This freedom is exercised without the supervision of their mallam but along the carefree urban streets.

Mostly, classes are held under trees or in other available open space or in zaure (open space just at the entrance to the compound. At night, a burning hearth becomes their source of light and the pupils sit on the bare floor with wooden slates.

There is no formal register for checking attendance and the mallam might not know all the students thus it is often possible for a few of them to abscond and play truant.

The teaching is to some extent coercive, as the mallam always possesses a cane which he swings at slight provocation. While some of the boys still attend classes, many others don’t; eventually, they take completely to the streets thus constituting a nuisance to the urban community.

Past attempts at reform

Several attempts have been made to modernise the system, ranging from personal efforts to government intervention. For instance, Sunni (Izala) Muslims, who view the practice—the method, not the teaching—as anti-Islamic (bid’a) for

dehumanising the child, established Islamiyya schools, which teach both conventional Western education and Islamic education simultaneously. However, these schools are elitist in character, commonly situated in urban areas, and rarely appeal to rural dwellers.

Again, Islamiyya schools, unlike the almajiri (or tsangaya) or makarantar allo are organised as conventional schools and are mostly day schools. The pupils continue to enjoy the comfort of their daily lives from their homes, as against the almajiri system, which is mainly a boarding and nomadic setup.

The first attempt to reform the system was made in 1959, when the Kano Native Authority warned parents against abandoning their children in the name of Islamic education and the teachers were directed to refuse any almajiri. This was unsuccessful.

In 1985, the military government enacted an edict to control Quranic schools. The thrust of the law was to regulate these schools and the movements of the teachers and students to certain urban centres – however, like the previous measure, the law was ineffective, in part, because most of the teachers and the students were unaware of its existence. The law generated criticism as many considered Western standards weak and doomed to fail, because they fostered “individualism, careerism, and materialism.”

Between 2003 and 2011, the Kano State government tried unsuccessfully to improve the system by providing free food to the students and giving the mallams monthly salaries and cattle for farming. Also, the federal government, under former President Goodluck Jonathan, devised a means to reform the system by integrating the almajiri system with orthodox model schools, but these efforts remain ineffective as the rights of children to education, parental love, care, good health benefits, are often bargained away without legal consequences.

Prominent northerners, including the deposed Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, have expressed concerns over the menace that has denied so many children in the region their rights to basic education. The former CBN governor said fathers should be arrested for sending out their children to take alms. He argued that fathers who can’t fend for themselves should go out and do the begging themselves instead of sending out their children.

He said, “Every day, wives are complaining about their husbands who claim their rights but abandon their responsibilities of marriage, women being divorced with their husbands not taking care of the children and those children ending up on the streets, drugs, political thuggery, violent extremism.”

Minna, Niger-based Islamic scholar, Mallam Ishaq Hussein, said, “Everybody accuses us of maltreating the boys but all we do is impart useful knowledge into them. Many parents are too poor to educate and take care of their children. Most times, they beg us to go with them and we do our best to take care of them. But whenever anything bad happens, we are blamed. Allah knows best.”

To sanitise almaijiranci

Good governance is at the heart of the solution. Several measures including firmer enforcement of anti-trafficking laws protective of minors and bio-data tracking have been suggested to curb the menace. Experts urge the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to track and provide specific data on almajiri children and their parents. Sourcing accurate data can help to forge a partnership between policy makers and the parents of the almajirai who are far away from their family homes.

While successive governments have been accused of displaying a lacklustre approach to sanitising the almajiri system, Sheikh Ibrahim Adam, an Abuja-based Islamic cleric and scholar, argued that aside from government and other stakeholders including non-governmental organisations, parents must also accept to play their part by having only the number of children they can cater for.

“It is very wrong and irresponsible of parents to have more children than they can care for. Islam forbids this,” he said.

On his part, Professor Magashi argued that destitute almajirai can be saved through the instrumentation of the law. He said, “To save destitute almajirai and to educate and care for them with the dignity and respect they deserve, laws already in place need only be enforced. This, however, must be a firm and focused decision, which may require the use of force and diplomacy, as well as the provision of the necessary environment to benefit from a reformed, available, affordable, acceptable, and in some cases compulsory system of education.”

The northern almajirai must, however, stay alive to enjoy the full benefits of such measures. Many of them contend, daily, with dangers lurking in plain sight, like the peking order that empowers senior almajirai to bully younger boys in their informal school setting. A recent video, obtained by The Nation, shows a young almajiri boy displaying grievous wounds comprising lacerations to his body, three gashes on his head and a severe wound that has caused blood to secrete permanently beneath his left eyeball.

His crime? He failed to go out and get food for his seniors. The latter didn’t care that he had no money to get them a meal, they simply expected him to go on the streets and secure it through begging. His failure to do so earned him a life-threatening thrashing overtime.

Study proves many almajirai die before age 16

A recent study revealed that, “half of the boys who go into the almajiri system will die in the long run; 17 percent survive, and the remaining 33 percent get lost, of which some will eventually also die. In other words, at least 50 percent of the boys born into this system die.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers across four universities including Funom Theophilus Makama, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, United Kingdom (UK); Esther Funom Makama, Department of Business Administration, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Borno State; Peter Maitalata Waziri, Biochemistry Department, Kaduna State University, Kaduna State; and Attahiru Dan-Ali Mustapha, Resident Public Health Doctor Community Medicine Department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.

The research team noted that at least three of every six boys involved in the almajiri system die prematurely because they “are exposed to harsh conditions and subjected to begging to fend for themselves, leaving them susceptible to violence, hunger, starvation, infections, child predators, and being used as elements of violence. This decreases their chances of surviving till adulthood as a lot die even before they reach age 16.”

The research, which was carried out to determine the survival rate of boys enrolled in the almajiri system was conducted in 137 villages across two northern states, Kano and Kaduna, where the practice is endemic.

The study concluded that for every six boys sent away to participate in the almajiri system of seeking knowledge in northern Nigeria, three die, one stays alive and the other two get lost, their whereabouts unknown. This is at least 50 percent of the child mortality of boys born into the almajiri system of northern Nigeria.

A system that kills three out of every six children and subjects two more to be missing, leaving only one to survive, is not a system to tolerate, no matter its cultural or religious correlation, according to the researchers.

This is clearly a case to be investigated and urgently resolved by all stakeholders including the parents, civil societies, religious and political leaders.

Against the backdrop of the conundrum, the sad fate of dead and forgotten almajirai presents a sore note; few people would forget in a hurry, the sad event of July 7, 2023, when three almajirai were burnt to death in a fire ignited by a burning mosquito repellent coil killed, in Yola, Adamawa State. The trio, comprising Ismaila Muhammadu, 12, Yusuf Abubakar, 13, and Mustapha Ahmadu, 17, resided in the premises of their school at Sabon Pegi, a community in Yola South Local Government Area. The owner of the school, Malam Abubakar Usman, confirmed that the pupils died due to the fire from the mosquito repellent which engulfed their room.

Equally instructive was the sad fate of the Kebbi eight, who were crushed to death in a burrow pit while digging for clay to mend their hut.

In the wake of their demise, the state governor, Nasir Idris, sent a delegation of State Commissioners and Special Advisers led by the Head of Service (HoS), Safiyanu Garba Bena, to condole with the boys’ families, and donated N20 million naira to the bereaved.

But can N20 million bring back eight promising boys, teeming with life? Is it a worthy consolation to the bereaved families of Muhammad Bawando, Musa Kambaza, Dan-sayyada Kambaza, Abu Takai, Nasir Cheferu, Barmo Babanda, Kalije Bawanda, and Yakubu Aminu?

Can the money revive their boyish chants, where dreams of home are shaped from earth? Can it reignite their heartfelt quest for warmth and delicate balance atop the shifting sands of fate?

In the shadows of Dukku hills, memories of the eight almajirai haunt rock and earth, their ghostly presence free from the weight of crushing boulders and the weightier burden of parental neglect.

President Bola Tinubu has relieved Prof. Aliyu Jauro and Dr. Adeniyi Aremu of their appointments as director-general of the National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and managing director/CEO of the Niger Delta River Basin Development Authority (NDRBDA), respectively.

In a statement on Friday evening by presidential spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, Tinubu also announced the appointments of Dr. Innocent Barikor as NESREA director-general.

The president also picked Ebitimi Amgbare as the new managing director/CEO of NDRBDA.

Barikor is an academic, politician and former Rivers State House of Assembly member from 2011 to 2015.

He succeeds Prof. Jauro who former President Muhammadu Buhari first appointed in February 2019.

In February 2023, Buhari reappointed Jauro for another four-year tenure to elapse in 2027.

Meanwhile, Amgbare is a retired naval officer and former commissioner in Bayelsa State.

He succeeds Dr. Aremu, whom Buhari first appointed in January 2017. Aremu was reappointed for another four-year tenure in January 2021.

The President said he expects the new heads of these important agencies to “discharge their duties with utmost fidelity to the nation and unfailing adherence to the highest standards of professionalism, accountability, and excellent service to the people of Nigeria.”