The Kano State Government says it has transferred 1,098 almajiris to different states of the country.
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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 learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers, however, the majority of them end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria.
They also constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
According to Garo, the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He explained that all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Bent on taking precautions, the Jigawa State government said it would quarantine all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano, despite the coronavirus test conducted on them in Kano.
Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, in a remark, said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse and appealed for a collaborative effort to curb the spread of the virus in the state.
The governor, while commended residents of the state for complying with the lockdown directive, said the decision was taken to arrest the spread of the virus.
As of Saturday night, the state, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has 77 coronavirus cases.
Meanwhile, the decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state should be transferred to their states of origin.
However, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries before the latest agreement by the governors.
This came after it banned street begging in the most populous state in Northern Nigeria.
Findings also revealed that no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets.
