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NAFISA IBRAHIM MADAKO: The Nomad who turned mathematics Olympian

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Nomadic Girl child

 By Alkasim Abdulkadir

As the debate of child marriages rages on in Nigeria I had cause to remember an encounter two years ago that further restates the great need for girl child education in Northern Nigeria. A foremost education advocate Hajiya Amina K. Ahmed approached me to produce a documentary on one of the pupils at the Maizube Nomadic School, where she serves as a member of the school’s board. I was intrigued by the request; I was curious and wondered on end what remarkable thing the pupil had done or invented.

Then I got the brief. Maizube Nomadic School is part of the sprawling Maizube Farm, an agricultural holding operated by the former Head of State Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, as part of the CSR of the farm it provided an all expenses paid formal and vocational education for the hundreds of nomadic children that stayed within a 20 kilometer radius of the farm, they lived in hamlets or temporary nomadic settlements known as Rugga. They received school uniforms and books for free. Other facilities available at the school were an agric nursery, basketball and volleyball courts and also a well equipped multi-media laboratory.

The school management had entered its pupils for the Pan African Mathematics Olympiad, a global test of mathematical competence -administered in Nigeria by the National Mathematics Institute. Amongst the best 3 candidates adjudged to have passed the mathematics test for the Olympiad that came out of Niger State, was the script of one Nafisa Ibrahim Madako a regular nomadic girl. The competence of her quantitative skill sparked a huge interest across the state, for this she got a scholarship to see her through secondary and tertiary levels, a certificate and a bronze medal for her mental exertions. The recognition not only brought immense pride to her family but to the entire Fulani community in Niger State.

In the cause of shooting the documentary, we visited the then 11 year old Nafisa at the nomadic settlement where she lived with her parents. Her daily activities included helping with the house chores, joining her peers for Quranic lessons where her father Ibrahim Madako was the teacher, afterwards she brought back milk and cow dung from the grazing fields before heading to school. I asked her father what motivated him to enroll Nafisa at the Maizube School. “Times have changed, our children need to study so that they can come back and help us, they need to learn everything they can so that they can come back and help us and our animals”. Without any doubt not every girl like Nafisa is privileged with such -a father in support of education and an educational intervention that is functional.

Action Aid International (AAIN) discovered in a research that there was gap in favor of boys in school enrolment, retention and completion. The study on girls’ education revealed factors affecting girls’ education as cost of education, school environment, government policies and there implementation, the culture and religious inhibitions amongst others.

The report further states that girls are often sent to generate income for families by selling wares, food stuffs in the market or on the streets. Early marriage has also militated against girl attendance, retention and achievements in school. About 30% of school Age girls drop out of school haven already begun childbearing at an early age. School Census shows an enrolment figure of 24,422,918 (male -13,302,269, 54.5%; female – 11,120,649: 45.5%) indicating a gender parity of 83.6%. About 65% of primary school children in the North are male while 35% are female. With a total of between 8-10 million children of primary school age out of school, Nigeria has one of the highest out of school population in the world.

The National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) established by Decree No 41 of December 1989 is meant to provide nomads with relevant and functional basic education; and to improve the survival skills of the nomads by providing them with knowledge and skills that will enable them raise their productivity and levels of income. However, the girl child in Nigeria’s villages and sub-urban centers has a greater chance of seeing the four walls of a class room when compared to a nomadic girl child, in spite of federal government’s intervention.

Nevertheless the intervention is not without its challenges, there is a dearth of teachers in terms of quantity and quality, there are only 4,208 teachers for 1,321 schools (a ratio of about 3 teachers per school) and a significant percentage of more than 60% lack the minimum requisite teaching qualification prescribed by government.

Nafisa has just concluded her JSS 3 exams at the New Horizon College in Minna, an Ivy-league type secondary where she’s on scholarship endowed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar; For Nafisa Ibrahim Madako the nomad who became an Olympian her dream of becoming an accountant inches closer every day.

 

Editor at Citizens Platform, @alkayy on Twitter.

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: Citizens Platform

DisNaija.Com publishes regular posts on Nigeria News, Nigerian Newspapers, Online Nigeria Gist.

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Nigeria News

Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.

The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.

Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.

Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.

Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.

Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.

In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.

Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.

However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.

Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.

 

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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By Ugochukwu Alaribe

Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The market women, said to be  from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.

Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.

A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.

Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that  smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.

 

Sourced From: Vanguard News

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Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole

The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.

Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.

He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid  in January 2020.

‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.

She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.

He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.

The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police  Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.

Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.

He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’

He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.

Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend. 

He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart. 

Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.

The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad  problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”

The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad,  saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts.  This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose. 

Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them. 

Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter. 

“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said. 

 

Sourced From: Tribune

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