By Bimbo Ogunnaike
The Kano Council of Ullama’s has given a hard knock on Governor Abdullahi Ganduje over his banning of streets begging in the State, describing it as an action in futility which was hurriedly taken.
The Council said the government was not serious about it because right steps had not been taken on the issue.
The Kano Chairman of the Council of Ullama’s Sheik Ibrahim Khalil said, “Our opinion is on three to five issues, firstly, if we view the history of banning street begging since the time of Sir Ahmadu Bello, when they were making efforts to ban street begging but were opposed by the Ulama because they saw it as a way of keeping people away from Quranic or religious studies.”
Khalil said that the issue was politicised then, and also during the reign of governor Audu Bako Muhammadu Ibrahim, the father of Prof Ruqayya in 1971.
The chairman ,who said the main problem is that it doesn’t last, adding that ”even the government that says it has barred begging is not serious about it. It will ban it and after a while it will return. Just like the Hausa saying that ‘The king’s instruction lasts only seven days.”
“The right steps have not been followed and begging cannot stop because the correct measures have not been put in place. The right steps to follow in banning street begging include firstly, the Quranic clerics involved have to be identified.
Because there are street beggars who are Quranic students, there are beggars who are sent by their parents from the rural areas to come and be begging in the urban areas, there is also begging engaged in by some physically challenged individuals,”Khalil said.
He added that all these forms of street beggars need to be identified and each one be addressed accordingly.
“Secondly, the Hizbah used to make arrests and when they arrest them they just keep them and cannot properly even feed them. More so, you cannot stop begging in the state without joining hands with the neighbouring states.
“If you don’t join hands with the neighbouring states, for example in the General Hospital in Kano, you have people from Katsina, Bauchi, Niger, Gombe, or Zaria or even Jos, you budget for just the state in the hospital but it is about five states that benefit from the hospital. You have not considered them, they have not been considered by their states, no budget has been made for them,” he noted.
“If you recall there was the case of a man who just sent three of his children to the city to be begging for sustenance because he wanted to place his new wife in the room they were occupying. You can see that these kids are not Almajiris or Quranic pupils,” he explained.
“Therefore, you need statistics of the real situation, know the total number of the Quranic teachers, the total number of the Quranic schools and their pupils, know exactly who the real Almajiris are first. You will then know their needs understand their problems and then proffer the right solutions. You can decide to cater for them or send them back to their homes.
“But you have not conducted all these. They have not consulted people like us that have made efforts on the issue to hear our own experiences, get our reports, those of Ndatsu in the past and those of the times of Sir Ahmadu Bello to get a better solution.”
“To us at the Council of Ulama, the government cannot do it and is not serious about it. They are just doing it to appease their masters abroad, or get their money or some kind of noise making. Or they might have been accused of something from somewhere for which they simply organise a ceremony and that is all. That is our opinion”, Khalil said.
