Pandemicization of the Almajiris – By Alexander Ekemenah
One of the unintended consequences or fallouts of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic – in the Nigerian context – is the pandemicization and politicization of the almajiris in the Northern part of the country. It is an unfortunate tragic turn of events.
Almajiris have been in the regular news since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Why? Simply because they are almajiris that have suddenly become canon fodder for the gross incompetence in managing the pandemic in the Northern part of the country.
As a consequence, the almajiris are being deported on a regular basis from several states in the North back to their very states of origin in the same North. The South does not produce almajiris!
Nobody or no state wants to be its neighbor’s keeper anymore. To thy tents, o ye Israel! Everybody is hard-pressed and the current situation does not seem to permit or support “generosity” or social empathy to one’s neighbor. Every man to himself, God for us all!
Society is falling into a kind of Darwinian state of nature right before our very eyes. This does not need to happen.
But the most unfortunate thing about this development (this deportation process) is that it is not fact-based. It is not backed up by reliable facts and figures. It is not backed up by any known social and medical scientific evidence that the almajiris are the most vulnerable or exposed group to the raging COVID-19 pandemic. No individual state government in the North, not even the Presidential Task Force and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, has been able to come up with or provide unquestionable facts and figures against the almajiris.
But because they are already branded, stigmatized and exposed to vagaries of Nature and harsh social life, and most importantly because they are a helpless group of people with nobody speaking or willing to speak for them, it is easy for the narcissistic state governors in the North to gather, bundle and deport them to their various individual states of origin where they are further dehumanized by being herded or hounded into isolation centres where and when there are no primary reasons to do so in the first place.
The so-called palliatives or relief materials did not get to these unclassed, or declassed, uncategorized or unregistered group of people (if we are to use strict social scientific classification methods) which partly explain the number of riots that have taken place in the North over non-delivery of such palliatives.
Thus the almajiris have suddenly become “unenviable” social strata of citizens that can be bullied, scape-goated, turned to guinea pigs, canon fodder or whatever adjectival terminologies one wish to deploy to describe this mind-boggling mistreatment of people that are so helpless.
Several state governors in the North have suddenly become “ashamed” of the almajiri phenomenon when it was precisely their archaic social policies or lack of modern social policies that brought and promoted the existence of this category of human beings over the decades predicating their policies on religious, social and cultural practices in the North.
It has been estimated that there are about 11 million almajiris in the North – and if that were to be an independent sovereign country, it would probably be the 7th largest population or thereabout in Africa. Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Now, one of the consequences of the unfolding scenario in the North is that these almajiris are heading South. State governments in the South, especially in the South east are now crying out about the invasion of the almajiris of their territories. The almajiris are being gradually driven from the increasing inhospitable North. But very shortly too, they will be driven back to the North. The South has never really wanted these categories of people in its midst because it is full of prejudices and even hatred for them.
Such is the picturesque of the social havoc that COVID-19 pandemic is already causing to the society, especially in the North where there is no visible and immediate sustainable solution to confronting this festering pestilential problem which may soon get out of hand if not handled properly.
It is indeed a very worrisome development that has been negligently allowed to mestasized into the current Frankestein monster, to say the least.
The country is literally under lock-down. Yet, public transport is going on across state boundaries with security agents aiding and abetting the mass movement of people that are not on essential services.
What of the security implications? In this type of situation, it is very easy for bandits, herdsmen killers, cattle rustlers, and even insurgents to mingle with these hordes of almajiris to go to new destinations of their choice to start causing mayhem.
What has become evidently obvious is that the political establishment in the North hates these almajiris but only considers them useful as political tool especially during election times and as demographic instrument in its battle for supremacy with the South. Nothing more!
The Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, was quoted in the media recently saying that the Northern Governors have decided to tackle the problem of the almajiris headlong by providing education for them from now on. That’s one of the greatest announcements coming from the North in recent years.
But unfortunately, nobody believe that announcement. It is rather believed to be a political statement meant for the gullible public or the marines!
The Northern state governors would have probably left these people alone. But these are desperate times where everybody is fighting to protect himself alone. The already existing poverty in the North is being escalated by this sudden COVID-19 pandemic that literally come from China that of course is the new “boyfriend” of Nigeria.
But the process is being reversed. There is ongoing blow-back of this unwholesome phenomenon where about 11 million people are being left to their fates. The obscurantism and/or obduracy of the Northern political oligarchy is being exposed for the whole world to see.
I will not say more than this for now.
