The Foundation for Peace Professionals (PeacePro) has cautioned that Nigeria’s deepening insecurity will remain unresolved unless the Almajiri system, as currently practised, is decisively reformed within the next five years. The group warned that continued neglect of millions of vulnerable children could destabilise not only Nigeria but the wider West African subregion.
PeacePro’s Executive Director, Abdulrazaq Hamzat, issued the warning after a fact-finding and stakeholder engagement tour across seven northern states. He said the consultations revealed a troubling pattern of child abandonment often defended on cultural and religious grounds, leaving many children socially excluded and exposed to exploitation.
According to Hamzat, the consequences now show up as banditry, extremism and organised criminal violence. He argued that what Nigeria faces is not isolated criminality but the long-term outcome of a system that fails to provide children with care, education, welfare and a sense of belonging.
Hamzat described the crisis as a layered failure involving families, communities, religious structures, society and the state. He said when these layers fail simultaneously, insecurity becomes predictable rather than accidental, as children grow up disconnected from protection, opportunity and civic identity.
PeacePro maintained that culture loses moral legitimacy when it produces deprivation and homelessness for children. The group stressed that its position is not an attack on Islam or northern traditions, but a call to restore ethical responsibility, compassion and accountability to child upbringing and religious learning systems.
The organisation urged federal and state governments to treat the issue as a national emergency and security priority. It recommended large-scale rehabilitation and vocational programmes for affected youths, alongside sustained engagement with religious and traditional leaders to drive culturally grounded reforms.
Hamzat warned that if the current trajectory continues, the scale of excluded and uneducated youths could fuel instability beyond Nigeria’s borders. He concluded that Nigeria’s insecurity will persist in different forms unless the country confronts what he called the root cause—decades of normalised child neglect masked as culture.
