We have registered over 10,000 almajirai in Kaduna – Commissioner

Hajiya Hafsat Baba is the Commissioner for Human Services and Social Development in Kaduna State. With a background in civil service, civil society and a grassroots mobiliser, she is the face behind the state’s revolution in getting almajirai and other children off the streets. In this interview, she speaks on why threats to her life cannot undermine the need to protect almajirai and other children.

What is the mandate of your ministry?

It is an expanded ministry from the Ministry of Women Affairs of which I was appointed as commissioner in 2017. In 2019, I was reappointed, but the name of the ministry was changed, the mandate changed and my job description changed. It is now Ministry of Human Services and Social Development. So there are gender, arts and culture, youth and social welfare departments; and also the rehabilitation board.

So, the mandate of the ministry is to look into social issues of women, children, youths and people with disabilities.

Would you say your humanitarian works prepared you for this position?

My job now is similar to the work I did in the civil society. The only difference is that I am now in government; meaning I’m part of decision making because I attend executive council meetings where policies are made. What we are doing now is very different from what previous administrations did in terms of empowerment such as buying sawing machines for women. What we are doing in this administration is to identify women who are into small businesses and assist them by increasing their capital. We also focus on women that are not accessing banking services and encourage them to save money in the bank; not just relying on traditional contribution. We got approval for N200m in the first batch where women accessed from N20,000 to N200,000. The programme has been very successful and about 14,000 women have opened bank accounts.

Last year, we intended to disburse another N200m, but the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the process. However, We are happy now that more women have opened bank accounts and we’ll be starting the next disbursement soon.

Have you encountered any disturbing social issue in the cause of your work?

It has been a disturbing job; and sometimes we see ugly happenings that leave you wondering, especially if you are handling issues affecting children. A right-thinking mind cannot comprehend an adult raping a child that is being breastfed. I have come across many helpless children; babies of less than six months being raped by adults of 60 years. I have seen a father of about 60 years that raped his child and have seen a child that was raped to death and dumped at a worship place.

The almajiri issue is another mandate of the ministry, because we have so many children roaming the streets who don’t know where their next meal will come from. So, when COVID-19 came and all schools were shut down, we felt children brought from other states, including neighbouring countries, should be returned to their parents to observe the protocols.

That was how we started the evacuation exercise and it was very challenging because we saw children of between five to 10 years that could not take care of themselves roaming our streets. We also saw children that were so sick and had to be taken to hospital because we couldn’t return them to their parents in such conditions. There were those with serious skin diseases that we had to spend so much to get them treated. I came across a 12-year-old boy with a strange skin disease which the doctor told me he had never seen. I can’t imagine a parent sending such a child to another state and then the malam could not take him to the hospital. The only excuse the malams are using against us is that we don’t want these children to learn the Qur’an, but I ask them, what stops children from learning Qur’an in the presence of their parents? It’s the responsibility of their parents to take care of them. So, we came to understand that the almajiri system is used as business by some malams because once a week a pupil is expected to take some money to the malam.

Despite the repatriation, some of the children have returned to the streets?

The cause also lies with some of the parents because they have so many children they can’t cater. That is where family planning comes because you can’t give birth to 20 to 30 children and expect to cater for them. It is a serious issue in Northern Nigeria, especially among Hausa societies, and we don’t want to address it but would rather hide under religion and tradition.

We must address these issues before we allow these children become bandits and insurgents. Majority of the children have not experienced warmth from their mothers, they have not experienced protection, good health care and have no education. Nobody mentors them and they have to grow up to defend themselves against all odds.

We have evacuated over 30,000 of them because they are supposed to be with their parents. Fortunately for Kaduna State, UNICEF came in and they want to work with us to have data on the almajirai in the state. We are working with the local governments to get the data to help us in planning. We’ll be submitting it to the governor, Ministry of Education, Bureau for Religious Affairs, as well as SUBEB. It’s a continuous exercise. Between April and December, 2020, we were able to capture 10,817 almajirai; and it is the highest in the country so far. There are adults among them, so we are going to teach them skills and also make them attain some level of education.

We understand you received threats as a result of your work, can you share your experience?

We received threats, but even before we embarked on the exercise, we engaged the malams to make them understand why we needed to reunite the children with their parents. It didn’t go down well with some people. However, since it is for the well-being of the child, all we want is to protect the child. So we received phone calls threatening us that we are going to be killed. Fortunately, on the recent threat, the security agencies apprehended the suspect and he will be taken to court. We took oath of office, and for me, I swore by the Qur’an to do this work. There is no job without risks. A lot of people are not ready for the change they asked for and change must happen from the mind, our actions, commitment, and hard work.

In October, 2020, you commissioned Womens’ Shelter, what is it for?

It’s a safe place for all abused women; whether of rape or domestic violence. Presently, we have a 16-year-old that was impregnated by her adopted father and the case is in court. Of course, we cannot allow her return to that house and so she and the child are safe at the shelter.

Secondly, we also have children that are forced into child labour and they are brought from various states of the North. I have a few that we are trying to trace their parents. We have children from 2017 that we have been trying to trace their parents but have not been successful. We have enrolled them in school and they are now government’s children. We also take children whose parents have them out of wedlock and abandon them. We give some of the children on adoption to families who meet the requirement to adopt, because we stopped adoption at the beginning of this administration so as to sanitise the orphanages in the state. At that time, baby factories were springing up so we did a regulation and captured all the orphanages and gave standards for their operation.

Has the castration law which was recently signed into law by Gov Nasir el-Rufai reduced the number of rape cases in the state?

Let me say it’s too soon because of the way the present administration is addressing the issue of rape. Looking at the confidence people now have in discussing rape issue, sometimes we think rape is on the increase because people are now coming out to talk about it. But we have made tremendous progress and we are fighting against settlement between rapists and parents of victims using any of the institutions: either traditional or religious. Once we succeed in sensitising people on this and the need for them to report such cases, it will help because victims deserves justice. We know that people are interested in the castration law and we are looking forward to having a scapegoat because we want to test the law.