Warns Failure Could Set West Africa Ablaze
The Foundation for Peace Professionals (PeacePro) has issued a stern warning that Nigeria’s worsening insecurity will remain unresolved unless the Almajiri system is decisively dismantled within the next five years, cautioning that continued neglect of the crisis could destabilize not only Nigeria but the entire West African subregion.
The warning was issued by Abdulrazaq Hamzat, Executive Director of PeacePro, following an extensive fact finding and engagement tour of seven states across Northern Nigeria, where the organization interacted with a wide range of stakeholders on issues of insecurity and the Almajiri crisis.
According to Hamzat, the tour exposed a disturbing and consistent pattern of normalized child abandonment, cloaked in cultural and religious justification, which has produced millions of socially excluded children and continues to fuel banditry, extremism, and organized criminal violence.
“What Nigeria is dealing with is not just banditry, terrorism, or criminality,” Hamzat said.
“It is the long term consequence of a society that has normalized the abandonment of its children.
The Almajiri system, in its current form, is not merely a policy failure; it is a cultural expression of total societal collapse.”
Hamzat described the situation as a composite failure cutting across all layers of society.
“It is a failure of culture, a failure of family, a failure of religion, a failure of government, and a failure of society, all rolled into one,” he stated.
PeacePro declared that Nigeria must eradicate the Almajiri system within the next five years or risk an uncontrollable expansion of insecurity beyond its borders, warning that the current level of violence could pale in comparison to what lies ahead.
“If this crisis is allowed to persist, Nigeria will not burn alone. The sheer scale of excluded, uneducated, and desperate youths being produced annually is enough to set the entire West African subregion on fire,” Hamzat warned.
While acknowledging that the Almajiri system is often defended as culture or religious tradition, PeacePro insisted that culture loses moral legitimacy when it systematically produces deprivation, homelessness, and social alienation.
“Culture is not sacred when it destroys lives. Any culture that turns children into roaming beggars, denies them education, welfare, protection, and a sense of belonging is no longer heritage, it is a social pathology,” Hamzat said.
Based on observations across the seven North West states visited, PeacePro identified the Almajiri crisis as the outcome of a five layer societal failure.
Family failure, where parents relinquish responsibility without safeguards, Ethnic nationality failure, where collective identity is used to normalize tragedy as culture, Religious failure, where children are accepted into learning systems without welfare, skills, or protection, Societal failure, where child begging is normalized and spiritualized and State failure, where child rights and basic education laws are ignored or weakly enforced.
“When families, ethnic nationality, religion, society, and the state all fail at the same time, insecurity becomes inevitable, not accidental,” Hamzat said.
PeacePro warned that children raised outside family care, education, social protection, and civic identity inevitably grow into adults disconnected from the state and vulnerable to recruitment by criminal gangs, extremist groups, and violent political networks.
“You cannot abandon children in the name of culture and expect peace in the name of patriotism. A society that mass-produces excluded children is manufacturing future instability,” Hamzat added.
The organization stressed that its position is not an attack on Islam, Northern culture, or religious education, but a call for urgent reform rooted in responsibility, dignity, and accountability.
“This is not about destroying culture or faith. It is about restoring their ethical foundations. Religion without welfare and compassion has been weaponized against the very children it should protect,” Hamzat said.
PeacePro called on federal and state governments to treat the Almajiri crisis as a national emergency and security priority, and to adopt a coordinated response aimed at eradicating the system within five years. Key measures include large scale rehabilitation and vocational programs for existing Almajiri youths, as well as sustained engagement with religious and traditional leaders to drive culturally grounded reform.
Hamzat concluded that Nigeria’s insecurity crisis will persist unless the country confronts its root causes with courage and honesty.
“Nigeria’s insecurity is not a mystery. It is the predictable outcome of decades of societal abandonment, normalized as culture. Until we end that abandonment, insecurity will only change form, not disappear.”
PeacePro reaffirmed its commitment to peacebuilding advocacy, policy engagement, and community-based reforms aimed at breaking the cycle between child neglect and national insecurity.
