Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group and the man at the top of Forbes list of Africa’s richest for as long as that list has existed does not need another job from anyone. He certainly doesn’t need any from me, an ordinary Nigerian citizen and journalist with no more than a pen on a good paper. Still, that is precisely what I intend to do today, to give Dangote what will probably become not just his most difficult job ever, but hopefully also his most important legacy forever. But let me say a few things before handing out this appointment letter.
First, we must all congratulate Dangote for the recent successful take-off of his giant petroleum refining complex in Lagos, the largest in the world, after many years in the making. The mega-project suffered many setbacks along the way, most of them unforeseen. But with uncommon determination and doggedness, the man behind it ploughed on until it reached the finishing line. And today, we all have something to celebrate and are excited by what the prospects of such a large industrial project will mean for us all as a country, not just the owner.
The competition and take-off of the Dangote refining complex demonstrate that peculiar resilience you will find in abundance among Nigerians, in our richest and poorest alike. It is, I think, a show of unequalled character in the man himself, and a lesson for the rest of us that money is not all about money, but about creating value, from which riches then come. More importantly, in a country where the rich spend their money on almost nothing other than luxury, the Dangote Refinery, we might yet find, will encourage other Nigerians to invest in large-scale industrial and commercial projects of all kinds locally, which can only be good for the country. In that sense, the historical significance of Dangote’s refinery will, for Nigeria, be on par with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil for America in the 19th century.
But the reward of good work is more work. By successfully completing his mega-refinery against all odds, Dangote has further burnished his sterling credentials globally as a thorough-bred businessman and also indicated that he is ready for a new challenge, one that I am about to hand out to him.
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I will like to give Alhaji Aliko Dangote the job of confronting and solving one of Nigeria’s Grand Challenges, namely, the transformation of the Almajiri system of education. I use the term Grand Challenges purposefully here, borrowed from Dangote’s own friend, Bill Gates. In the mid-2000s, having overachieved at and largely retired from Microsoft, and still in his 50s, Bill Gates launched himself into full-time work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, taking on, particularly, some of the world’s most intractable problems in global health, among them the eradication of malaria and polio. On malaria superficially, Gates said in 2007 that the foundation wished to “reach a day when no human being has malaria and no mosquito on earth is carrying it.”
For sure, that date has not yet come, but no one can deny that so much progress has been made by Gates’ interventions in these areas, or that for polio especially, the end date is near. Still, the point is not how much progress has been made or whether or not the target is achieved 100 per cent. The intent itself, and the moral foundation behind it, are the most important things to note here. And this is the whole point of my job offer to Dangote today.
Having achieved almost all there is to achieve in the African business world, it is perhaps time to take on and help solve some of the biggest problems in Nigeria, the transformation of the Almajiri system of education, not because he must but because he could, and for the unquantifiable good that it would do for Nigerian society forever. I now sign off my offer letter and post it on this page.
But should Dangote wish to take up this offer, then, I have a few more words still. First of all, Dangote would need less of his own money than his generally positive credibility and his demonstrated problem-solving abilities. True, as Bill Gates also found out with malaria and polio, solving a problem in the social world is not as “simple” as lining out the next generation of microchips or dealing with banks and boardroom politics. Transforming the Almajiri system of education will not be easy, but it can be done, and it needs to be done for all the good it can do. And by this appointment today, I am suggesting that it could be best done by Dangote.
His very name alone will focus all the national and global positive attention there could ever be on the project, in a way hardly anyone else could. Credibility is a currency that opens doors, and should Dangote be seen to be fully committed and hands-on to the challenge, in the way Bill Gates has been on malaria and polio, the doors of governments, donors, and everybody else will open. And it is quite opportune that the federal government has set up an Almajiri Commission under a man who has quite a lot of credibility of his own.
Secondly, should Dangote wish to take up the job, then I wish to suggest a simple, cost-effective strategy, for whatever it may be worth. In Nigeria, we often talk about the Almajiri system rather emotionally, that is, as a part of our cultural heritage. It is, but talking about the issue largely emotionally prevents us from even seriously thinking out or trying out a solution. Trekking to Makkah and Madina for Hajj is also part of our cultural heritage, yet few go to Hajj on foot these days, from Nigeria or from anywhere else. As the world around us changes, cultural and religious heritages can also change or become transformed, in the same way we now have the Glorious Qur’an in digital and many other formats.
My point is that a child does not have to be an “almajiri” as we know them today to obtain Qur’anic education, or better still, the almajiri child does not have to suffer the gruesome deprivations of social and economic capital as they now do. Qur’anic education and the social and economic capital a child needs to get ahead in life, such as other forms of education and skills, can be acquired together in a transformed almajiri system. Yet, such a transformed system does not need to involve building expensive “modern schools” in the way the Nigerian government tried, perhaps for political reasons, under the Jonathan administration years ago.
A boarding school is both a school and a home. The average tsangaya school could be thought of as a boarding school: the Malam as principal, his senior students as teachers or other categories of staff, his wives and his neighbours’ wives as cooks, carers, and cleaners, and all of them drawing monthly formal salaries, and the students placed on three meals-a-day free feeding and some basic clothing. In return for these, the school principal must accept certain changes such as an expanded curriculum that includes reading, writing, arithmetic and skill acquisition, in any language, as well as formal structures like uniforms, starting age requirements, graduation dates, and so on.
This is rather too simple a strategy, yes, but it can be expanded upon and can work. What cannot be denied, however, is that the almajiri system, as presently constituted, is no longer fit for purpose in the 21st century.
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