From Shuaibu Zubair Tatu, Birnin Kebbi
A non-governmental organisation operating in Kebbi State named Almajiri support initiative, has disclosed how they secured the release of a teenager from prison who stole two tubers of cassava who could not afford fines.
Chairman of the NGO, Comrade Shehu Umar disclosed this while briefing newsmen about his organisation activities for the past 23 years in existence at the head office of the NGO, Birnin Kebbi.
Umar, who lamented the challenges his NGO are facing, noted that it’s always difficult to trace the parents, relative of these Almajiri, less privileged teenagers whenever they involved in petty cases, stressed that it is high time, parents stopped throwing their kids on streets without care for them.
Narrating series of cases they have resolved, Umar explained that, often, some of these Almajiri children, in the course of searching for what to eat, survival, do committed petty crimes and ended up in remands.
According to him, ” for the past 23 years, we have graduated about 5,000 Almajiri on various vocational skills such as tailoring, cosmetics, some are now in tertiary Institutions studying various courses and programmes.
“However, these less privileged, sometimes, they committed petty offences and since they have nobody to assist them, they end up in prisons.
“Take for instance, a teenager boy, whose age was between 17 or 18, he enters somebody farm and stole two tubers of cassava. Because he couldn’t settle his fine, he was jail. When we got the information, we rescued him and freed him.
“There was another boy from Suru Local Government, he was accused of stole something and no witness against him, nobody saw him with the item they accused him of. But because they just wanted to punish him, they ganged up against him, he was jail, but we helped him out.
“Again, a small boy accomplished his friend to the Court who was accused of stolen a generator. The primary suspect was able to pay the fine but the friend, who knew nothing about the stolen items was jail because he couldn’t afford the fine. So, we got the wind of the case, we rescued him too.
“So we have many cases like that, that we have sorted out as long as their cases were not that of high-profile cases. Many of them, since they have nobody to help them, suffered for the offences they didn’t commit”.
Umar who commended many stakeholders in the state, who have been assisting the NGO in cash and kind, said, often,the NGO use to pay hospital bills of some less privileged in the society whose health were in critical level up till tertiary hospital.
He appealed to the philanthropists and general public across the country to assist the NGO in her mission to solve the societal vices, especially, the Almajiri syndrome which are getting out of hands in the Northern part of Nigeria.