On Talibés and Almajirai

The talibés in Senegal and almajirai (plural of almajiri) in Nigeria are remarkably similar. Both groups consist of young boys sent away from their rural families to live in urban residential Islamic schools, where traditional practices have increasingly devolved into systemic street begging and child exploitation.

Both are rooted in traditional Islamic boarding systems—called daaras in Senegal and tsangaya or almajiri schools in Northern Nigeria—where students focus intensely on memorising the Quran under a religious teacher (maramu or mallam).

Parents typically send their young sons (often starting at age 4 to 7) away from impoverished countryside villages to major cities, trusting they will receive a pious religious upbringing. Rather than being fully provided for by their teachers or communities, many of these children are mandated to spend hours each day roaming the streets to meet daily quotas for money or food.

International bodies and NGOs classify the systemic neglect, lack of formal secular education, malnutrition, and forced labour surrounding both groups as severe child protection and welfare crises.

The systems of both the Talibés in Senegal and the Almajirai in Nigeria began as highly respected, community-supported networks for higher Islamic education. Over centuries, economic pressures, colonisation, and rapid urbanisation transformed them from prestigious academic traditions into the marginalised systems seen today.

The Almajiri System in Nigeria, Pre-Colonial Prestige: The word almajiri comes from the Arabic al-Muhajirun, meaning "the emigrant." It historically referred to students who travelled to gain knowledge. In the pre-colonial Kanem-Bornu Empire and Sokoto Caliphate, these schools were elite institutions. They produced the region’s judges, clerks, and scholars. The traditional schools (tsangaya) were heavily subsidised by the ruling emirs, wealthy patrons, and the local community through zakat (charitable giving). Students did not need to beg because the community willingly fed and clothed them as a religious duty.

The British Disruption: In 1904, the British colonial administration conquered Northern Nigeria. They abolished state funding for Islamic schools and refused to recognise them legally. At the same time, they introduced a Western-style secular school system that required fees, which most poor Muslim families rejected. Deprived of state financial support, teachers (mallams) and their students lost their livelihoods. To survive, schools migrated to urban commercial centres, and students were forced to work or beg for food and charity, transforming a system of prestigious scholarship into a survival mechanism.

The Talibé System in Senegal, Pre-Colonial Integration: In Senegal, traditional Islamic schools (daaras) were deeply integrated into rural agrarian societies. Young boys (talibés, from the Arabic talib, meaning "student") studied the Quran under a religious teacher (marabout). Historically, talibés did not beg for money on city streets. Instead, they worked alongside their marabout on communal agricultural land, growing food to feed the school. This labour was viewed as character-building, teaching the boys humility, discipline, and the value of hard work.

The French colonial administration in Senegal marginalised traditional daaras, choosing to fund and promote French secular schools instead. This isolated the Islamic schools economically, restricting them to rural areas. During the 1970s and 1980s, severe droughts devastated West African agriculture, making rural farming unsustainable. Desperate marabouts moved their daaras into large cities like Dakar to survive. Lacking land to farm and unable to afford city life, the teachers adapted the traditional labour model, sending children onto urban streets to beg for daily cash and food quotas.

Equivalent systems and student populations are found in Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire.

While colonial education policies are a major historical catalyst, they are not the sole ultimate cause for the widespread street begging associated with almajirai (in Nigeria) and talibés (in Senegal/West Africa). Widespread rural poverty leads many families to send children away to daaras or tsangaya schools because they cannot afford to feed them at home. In addition, secular post-colonial governments often failed to integrate or properly regulate traditional religious schools, leaving a legal vacuum where abusive teachers can exploit children for economic gain. What was historically a minor or non-systemic practice of enduring hardship or seeking alms has morphed in urban environments into commercialised, forced begging managed by exploitative networks.

Both Senegal and Nigeria have introduced several legal reforms, modern curriculum integrations, and bans on street begging to address these crises. However, enforcing these laws remains incredibly difficult due to political pressure, deep-rooted cultural traditions, and severe enforcement gaps. In Nigeria particularly, the federal government launched major initiatives to build "Model Islamic Schools" (Tsangaya schools). These schools fuse traditional Quranic memorisation with basic English, mathematics, and vocational training, funded by the state, to eliminate the financial need for begging. But neither government has the budget or infrastructure to house, feed, and formally educate the millions of children who rely on these systems for shelter. Also, many rural, conservative parents still distrust state-run secular schools, viewing them as elite institutions that do not teach moral values.

In Northern Nigeria, the almajiri system is deeply scrutinised as a critical national security concern. Security analysts and organisations like the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) highlight how the system functions as a vulnerability pipeline. With an estimated 30 million out-of-school and almajiri children in Nigeria, violent non-state actors like Boko Haram, ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province), and northern bandit groups look to these children as prime recruitment pools.

While the system itself does not inherently teach violent extremism, it produces hundreds of thousands of boys who grow up experiencing severe poverty, isolation, and a lack of parental love or state support. When they outgrow the schools, they often have no secular education, no literacy, or job skills, leaving them economically desperate and susceptible to the financial and ideological promises of insurgent groups.

Also, because almajiri children are highly visible begging on city streets, they face intense societal stigmatisation, sometimes being pejoratively labelled by the public as "urchins" or future criminals. This social exclusion deepens their detachment from the state, making anti-government insurgent narratives more appealing.

Ref: Exploring Youth Radicalisation Within the Almajiri System in Northern Nigeria

Talibés beg in Senegal's St Louis's main market. The boys can spend up to 10 hours on the streets in search of food and money, with severe beatings awaiting some. Photo by Pete Pattison/The Guardian

The love that dare not speak its name

This evening, Channel 4 Television on its Dispatches programme screened a very interesting and in-depth report on homosexuality in Africa, presented by award winning Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura. The film is not available to be embedded, but the whole 50 minutes of it is available on the Channel 4 Dispatches website for the next four weeks from today's date. Please click on this link to watch the film Africa's last taboo. For those not in the United Kingdom or for whom 4oD is not available, the film is available on YouTube. Click here to see it.

On the whole, the film reaffirms what people like me have been saying all along, that in the minds of most people, the terms "sodomy" and "homosexuality" are interchangeable. Oh, I have had innumerable arguments with those who will insist that sodomy cannot be separated from homosexuality, so I'm quite familiar with that argument. But I do personally know that homosexuality is not just about a sex act.

Prison inmates who prior to being imprisoned are red-blooded heterosexual males, find themselves engaging in sexual acts with other male inmates whilst in prison. But these men have not become homosexuals just because they have engaged in sexual acts with other men. They are heterosexual and will revert to their heterosexual ways as soon as the opportunity for sex with the opposite sex becomes available. On the counter side, there are many gay men who do not engage in penetrative anal sexual intercourse. A man who is physically and emotionally attracted to other men, even if he did not act on these feelings, even if he is celibate, is still a gay man. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation, it is a state of being. And try as he does in the film to come across as modern, enlightened and sophisticated, even Sorious Samura the reporter makes the grave error of sometimes referring to homosexuality as a "practice".

The Ugandan bishop's arguments are all entirely either in relation to the anus, or to the importation of homosexuality to Africa from the West. He even goes so low as to argue from his pulpit that gay Africans become gay because they have received monetary gifts from their western friends. This makes me wonder what qualifications one needs to become a bishop in Uganda, or whether one needs qualifications at all. Also I think it's rather interesting that in the film, the Mbale district police commander in Uganda is not only the arresting officer, he seems to be the prosecutor too, as well as the judge, since he condemns, convicts and sentences the alleged gay men, all this while still in his police uniform. And of course the almighty anus, (and its muscles), feature prominently and play the leading role in the police commander's description of the "crime" of homosexuality and in his description of the events leading up to the arrest of the two gay men.

All in all, the film offers a very realistic representation of the situation for gay people in Africa, since the views of the homophobic majority are aired side by side the stories that gay Africans have to tell about their predicament. Also the very real threat faced by gay people in Africa is starkly enunciated. I have much sympathy for those gay Africans who lived during the colonial years, when self expression as a gay person would have been quite impossible. It is encouraging to see that in our time more and more gay African people are able to speak up for themselves.

Traditional African societies had evolved various means of dealing with homosexuality in their communities, and I will venture to add that most traditional societies were perfectly familiar with homosexuality. The arrival of the Europeans however, meant that those African traditions and practices that were incompatible with European doctrine were abolished, (by the Europeans). It is significant that much of the homophobia that we see in Africa today is of the kind that is championed by the Bible waving bishop in this film. So then, I ask, is the Bible from Africa? Well, we all know the answer to that one.

On religion or not

If you were to Google the origin of religion, you'll find text that states the belief in the afterlife occurred around the time that mankind began having self realisation or conscious thought. What this means is that once man realised that he lives and dies, he separated himself from the animal world. Animals do not know that death is looming. Religion was born from the collective anxiety created by self realisation. This suggestion goes on that once man realised his days were numbered and death was inevitable, the anxiety about what happens when he dies became so profound that religion was born. The story of a Creator who created the heaven and the earth and all life, and that after we die we are granted eternal life with our creator, is a whole lot more comforting than that we just rot in the cold earth. This is just one theory of the development of religion.

People want to believe and so they believe. They have faith that the creator is real. 90% of religious people follow the religion taught to them by their parents.

The rise in non believers has to do with the availability of information. From the dawn of time through to the dawn of the internet, information was not readily available. For those of us who grew up before the PC, our only sources of information were our library and the world book encyclopaedia.

Religious people get bent out of shape when anything contradicts or challenges the power and glory of God. But I have never witnessed evidence that prayer works to cure the sick. If all someone does for a cancer patient is pray, ignoring medical intervention, chances are the cancer patient will die.

As for the person who talked about being careful about venturing into a vein of science that may not be safe, referring particularly to stem cell research, I have one question for you. Do you avoid medical intervention when you are sick or dying? If we did not allow science to progress, the vast number of medical breakthroughs we now take for granted would never have happened. Doctors can operate on a foetus in vitro to correct issues with the unborn. They can do surgery on a person’s brain to cure epilepsy. They can give you a pill and cure a bacterial infection, it is called an antibiotic. Many say we should not do any of these things in the name of religion. I say science is a good thing.

Belief is a choice. Every religion believes they are right. I believe if there is a God, it won’t care what religion you have, or don’t have, so long as you were a good, moral person. He who doesn’t believe feels free because of it. Let him be. Judge yourself against your beliefs, do not judge another against your beliefs.

If I could prove to you that heaven does not exist, would you live any differently? If I could prove to you that heaven is a definite place and that to get there you had to change your life drastically, getting rid of any excess, could you do that? Life without religion is not pointless. There are close to 15.2% of the world’s population who do not have a religion.

Some religions forbid drinking alcohol but Jesus did not. Some religions forbid the priests to marry, but this was not always the case, in the same religion. Study religion, not just yours, but Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Knowledge is power. Or resist knowledge and go through life believing what you have been taught, accepting it and only it. Shunning anything new or different and die hoping you are right.

"We are ready to train your people.." Al Qaeda tells Nigerian Muslims

DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month.

https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-nigeria-qaeda-muslims-20100201-idAFJOE6100EE20100201

On becoming a leader

Music has always been my ministry. Though I dragged my feet about it for a long time, I finally recently joined the choir at my church in London. As a boy I was in an all-male Cathedral choir, where we the young boys sang the soprano/treble part and the older men sang the alto, tenor and bass parts. My father and both of my older brothers were also in the choir, and singing for me has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. In the choir we had vocal training, and were taught to read sheet music. At school I learned to play musical instruments, the recorder in particular. I distinctly remember that time many years ago, when the choir of Kings College Cambridge travelled all the way from the UK to visit us and sing with us during a special service at our church at Marina in Lagos, Nigeria. I was still a boy, well under 10-years old, but the memory of that special occasion is still fresh in my mind. Ours was also the church that the then Head of State of Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon would attend now and again. This is just to provide some history.

Coming back to my story, having joined this choir at my church I attended choir practice for the first time yesterday. As we all know, the weather in London has been bad recently, so after the practice session there was the need to offer a lift to any of the others who wanted a lift home. I wound up with the pastor of the church sitting with me in my car, and within the 20 minutes it took to drive to his house, he had made the decision that I was to become the leader of the choir. Ahem! 

I mean, I had not even been in the choir for a full day, and more importantly, I had never joined the choir in ministering to the congregation during the Sunday service. But this pastor is one of those assertive people that you just do not say "no" to. So I said "yes", when after he told me he was appointing me, he asked me what I thought of his decision.

Now, I have never been the leader of anything in my life. I have always been content to stay unnoticed on the sidelines, such that even if occasionally I raised my head to say something or voice one opinion or other, I would quickly retreat to the safety of the sidelines. So the fact that the church authority after seeing me just once at choir practice had deemed me a suitable candidate for the job of choir leader, seems rather surprising. I suppose this suggests that they were impressed with my demonstrable knowledge of music, and with my vocal ability. And with this I don't have a problem. But leading a group of singers involves a lot more than just singing. It involves coordinating and organising. And having never had any experience of such, I find it daunting. However, I'm diving into my new role with enthusiasm and intend to do the best that I can, being always willing to take on new challenges, learn new things, and listen to advice.

By the way, I ministered with the choir at Sunday service today. I even got to do a solo part. The people at church all seemed surprised and one of them made a comment about "hidden talent". At this rate, it won't be long before we will be auditioning for the X Factor 😀