Kano

Kano, Almajirai, Yan’ Talla, and the Contradictions Therein

Abdullah Musa

The spur to write this article came last Thursday, (2 Ramadan) when I drove into Audu Bako Secretariat, (the main building complex that houses the Ministries of Finance, Environment, Information, Budget and Planning, Justice; Office of the Head of Service, Civil Service Commission, Audit, and the Offices of many Special Advisers to the State Governor) on a personal mission.

As I parked my car at the parking lot, I was greeted by a thunderous chant: maula ta sidi maula ta balarabe, maula; and it resonated again and again, menacingly getting closer to me. I looked to my left and noticed a gang of about 20 or more Almajirai, (children who have been sent out of their homes for Quranic studies) coming towards me. As was usual, the gang had a leader who was giving the chant and the others echoed. Then a splinter group moved towards me with the sub-chant, urging me to give alms; I declined and they moved on.

The reader may note that I used the word ‘menacingly’ to describe the movement of the Almajirai, for that was what it actually was: the boys were unnecessarily so loud, that left me thinking whether it was actually a protest march organized by them, akin to that organized by labor unions to press home their demands. An observer near by was reacting to the thunderous marchers by saying to his companion: it had been reported that huge sums of money was being paid monthly for the Tsangaya project, so why this? (Impliedly, he was asking his companion, why this nuisance?) His companion had no answer because he was not the Special Adviser to Governor charged with the responsibility for sanitizing the Tsangaya education system.

Tsangaya education system is a schooling system that seeks to enable male children to memorize the Holy Qur’an by keeping them away from the society, so that absolute concentration is assured. A question springs to mind which could be answered by the proponents of this archaic system: why is there no Tsangaya system for girls? Are they not also expected to memorize the Qur’an?

Culture dies hard. In Kano, and as in all Northern States with predominant Muslim population, those that speak for Islam are not products of the Tsangaya system. So why does it survive? Or more appropriately, why must it survive? Western educational system was a creature of force; meaning the force of arms was used to subjugate Muslim communities, and later they were incorporated into the system by forceful enrolment into elementary schools: to date, year-in, year-out, the Emir of Kano has to go out on an enlightenment campaign to educate parents on the need to allow their children to be enrolled into primary schools. We may note that this had been the case since the time when education in the North was free up to universities level, to now when the parents must pay for everything.

Why is it that after seeing and enjoying the fruits of Western education: medical doctors and their health services; engineers and their products; pilots who fly the Tsangaya graduates to Makkah; the soldiers who crushed the Maitatsine fanatics and so on, yet some people insist that their children would go through the Tsangaya system alone?

It is quite possible that the Special Adviser to Kano State Governor on Tsangaya education may have all the answers, and might have answered the question at so many fora, but I cannot recall hearing same, so I attempt my own answer, which may not necessarily be correct, but which may enlighten us to appreciate the challenges more.

Ask any Muslim what his or her pre-occupation in life is; the likely answer would be to earn the pleasure of his or her Creator. To do this, he or she takes the Prophet of Islam as model. And it is the Prophet (upon who is peace) who says that the best of you is he who learns the Qur’an and teaches it. The whole educational pursuit of the Black Muslim, (note that we do not say all Muslims, for even the Arabs are not as obsessed with memorizing the Qur’an as we do) is thus based on this model. So convinced are we Black Muslims as to the efficacy of the Qur’an that we are even comfortable to learn and memorize it without fully understanding its import.

But there are changes. Hundreds of thousands are passing through Islamic schools based on the Western models, and as such you are assured their children would not go back to the Tsangaya model. Again, many graduates of Tsangaya do also send their children to purely Western model schools, so they also would not send their children to Tsangaya later. But we are caught up in the similitude of a tiny sore on an otherwise large body. The moment an open wound appears on our body, however tiny it is, we become obsessed with that spot, and ignore all the healthy parts. We would not be at ease till such sore is healed. Most of our social problems could be viewed this way. Were I a statistician, I would be able to compute the probability of the Tsangaya system becoming extinct after one millennium from now.

But a modern Tsangaya is being planned by Kano State Government. This will be modeled along the Western educational system’s line: the students would be housed, fed, clothed by the sponsors; (proposed Tsangaya trust fund) and above all taught some form of trade. The idea being that after completion of the studies, the students have the wherewithal to earn a living.

The contradiction in relation to the old system is that here is a system that disdains Western schooling system. But by unleashing the captive students to go and beg, they on their part could not erect no-go areas in their quest for livelihood; you may recall they went into the heartland of boko (Audu Bako Secretariat) to go and beg. This in itself is enough indictment of the system; but sentiments are in many cases stronger than logic. In our title, we also referred to Yan Talla; by this we mean the girl-child hawker. We may recall our question when we wondered out loud, whether girls were not expected to memorize the Qur'an. The question could be answered ‘yes’, for there was no insistence that the girls be educated. They engaged in Talla in order to help their mothers with marriage expenses when the time comes. When we see girls hawking at site that expose them to moral corruption, we feel anger and helplessness. So many women associations have sprung up to challenge such indignity to womanhood, but their successes had been most minimal. This happens to be the case because it is a characteristic of our society that you win only a negligible percentage by appealing to their sense of reason. As in many societies, though reason has its place, law is the vehicle that ensures compliance to desirable conduct. In our case, the will to enforce the law is lacking; the concern for the decadence of society is at best cosmetic, not sincere. The contradiction in this non-system as it relates to girls is that where the girl is not hawking, then she is sent as house-help to a household where both the husband and the wife are paid employees, and the poor creature is employed to baby-sit for the educated mother’s child, while the mother goes to work. The natural law would thus be that the baby-sitter when she attains the age of marriage would ultimately give birth to another baby-sitter, while the baby girl of the working mother would grow up to be a working mother herself. If the parents of girls who do not send their children to either Western-model schools or Islamiyya do so because they fear moral corruption, yet they feed from the earnings derived from those women who are assumed to have been morally corrupted while at school. The wisdom here seems to be: go and become corrupt alone, but let us share the returns!

After tales of woes then what comes after? There are always so many alternative ways of tackling problems; in some cases the best way may only emerge after trying so many others. Social problems defy solution because there is not much connection between the government and the people. The people feel that they should not give input into governance in so far as that may translate into monetary loss. One would be interested in knowing the success of the Tsangaya Fund so far. It would not be surprising if the only contributors are those who have gained the patronage of the existing government in one way or the other. That would in real fact be shameful, since most of the businessmen of Kano must have gone through the Tsangaya system or no system at all. But the basic question to ask should have been: do they share the government’s concern as to the un-desirability of the existing system? If they don’t, then they cannot pay money for its transformation. We recommend the following:

o There should not be the creation of more parallel schools with name of ‘modern’ Tsangaya. Rather, existing Western model schools should have modified pre-school curricula, where PG, nursery1, 2, 3, and 4 should be introduced to teach pupils how to memorize the Qur’an. Thereafter, nobody would have the right to say that his child would not go to Western schools, for they are no longer Western.

o To make girl-education compulsory and free. The Ulama should be made not to tie the nuptial cord for any female whose father cannot show him the certificate of the daughter having attended a full time Islamiyya School. Any erring Alim would stand the chance of ostracization and prosecution.

o There must be a cut-off point when there should be no longer any new intakes into the old Tsangaya system. The federal government, the Muslim merchant class, foreign Muslim donor institution should help in funding the transformation.

o We may note that tsubbu, as a form of undesirable practice, that leads to cultism and maitatsine-type school of thought, all are products of the Tsangaya system; such system must thus be disbanded for the betterment of the society.

o We should give credit to Shekarau administration for showing more than cosmetic concern for this problem, but it cannot show significant achievements in so far as it is going solo.

o Muslim-dominated Northern States must come together to develop a regional blueprint in order to change the North’s educational and social landscape for the better.

Abdullah Musa