Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has decried the educational neglect in the North saying he almost cry when he travelled from Katsina to Daura and back to Katsina seeing Almajiris and out-of-school children roaming the streets with tattered dresses begging, playing when they ought to be in school in a city where all the first republic leaders schooled.
Alhaji Atiku said this during a media coverage on TV describing it as an educational crisis that has gripped the northern Nigeria which was once a center of learning excellence.
According to Alhaji Atiku, he saw the Almajiris in large numbers roaming the streets as he traverse through Katsina calling it, “very serious issues” that shows there is negligence on the part of the North to have allowed such to thrive.
Alhaji Atiku in his own words said, “This is the home of the former Katsina College, where all our first republic leaders went to. Today, it is the home of Almajiris in their 20s, 30s, 40s. Till I went to Daura and from Daura till I came back to the airport, ladies and gentlemen, these are very serious issues,”
Katsina College is the oldest institution of higher learning in northern Nigeria, built in 1921 and subsequently became a teacher’s training college in 1922. It was founded by Sir Hugh Clifford, governor of the Northern Region who explained that the aim of establishing the school was to train teachers who, “as true men could replicate themselves, teachers who could be future leaders, whose characters would have been sufficiently molded to shape society.”
Prominent personalities like Sir Ahmadu Bello, former premier of northern Nigeria, Tafawa Balewa, first Prime Minister of Nigeria in the first republic, Sir Kashim Ibrahim, and others had their post-primary education at the college until for administrative convenience, the college was moved to Kaduna, the regional capital and renamed Kaduna College, later to Zaria and again renamed Government Secondary School, Zaria. In January 1949, the name was changed to Government College, Zaria and later Barewa College, Zaria.
The emotional impact of seeing the home of the oldest institution of higher learning in northern Nigeria now having out of school children and Almajiris roaming the streets in large numbers is what Alhaji Atiku said almost made him cry.
The stark contrast between the Katsina educational past and present reality must make any reasonable person to bewail the retrogression that had befallen a place that is supposed to be a city of scholars considering the impact that institution must have left if allowed to follow chronologically.
The former VP stated, “I nearly shed tears when I last visited President Muhammadu Buhari in Daura. I landed at Katsina airport, and from Katsina airport up to Daura, I saw a host of Almajiris from 20, 30, 40 to large numbers on the road,”
To him, it was a tragic irony of witnessing such educational neglect in a region that once produced Nigeria’s founding leaders stressing that the educational crisis extends beyond immediate concerns to affect future generations.
He said, “And these issues are not only about ourselves, but about our children and grandchildren. Like I used to tell my children, I said, ‘Look, I live my life. Thank God, but it is about you and about their kids. We better face these challenges seriously now.”
femiores@katsinamirror.ng
