COVID – 19: Kano set to send Almajiri children to their States of origin

Kano State Government has revealed complete arrangements to evacuate all Almajiri to their states of origin.

Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano disclosed this on Sunday when he received a situation report from Task force and COVID -19 fund raising committees at the Government House in Kano.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Ganduje said that the state government had set up a high-powered Almajiri committee under the leadership of commissioner for local government, Alhaji Murtala Garo.

“We closed all schools in the state to curb the spread of the pandemic but we found out that the existence of Almajiri schools is constituting a stumbling block.

“We have complete records of all Almajiri’s and their schools in Kano. So far over 2,000 Almajiri had gone back to their states,” he said.

He said that the state government had designed a programme where three categories of Almajiri would be taken care of.

The governor said that the first category from neighbouring states of Bauchi, Katsina, Jigawa, Kaduna states, and Niger Republic would be evacuated to their states.

He said that the second category of Almajiri who were indigenes would be enrolled into their neighbourhood conventional schools.

He also warned that the state government would charge parents who resisted the initiative to court.

“For the third category who are sleeping on the street, markets and under the bridge, we will take them to our boarding schools where we provide them with uniform and feeding,” he said.

Ganduje said that with the help of traditional rulers, the government had identified the poorest of the poor for the distribution of palliatives.

He said that food items would be distributed to 50,000 households based on the collection so far.

“Each household will receive 25kg bag of rice, semovita or Dawavita, one carton of spaghetti or Macaroni or indomie; one four liter gallon of vegetable oil and N2,000 cash.

Ganduje said that he signed into law additional regulations to existing Kano state Public Health Law, which provided for the governor to add additional regulations.

“We decided to add such regulations so that we control manner and conduct of people that will be counter productive.

“I am happy I signed this law which has already taken effect and defaulters will be taken to court and punished accordingly,” he said.

The governor also appealed to the Federal Government for additional testing centres, palliative and protective kits.