The Foundation for Peace Professionals (PeacePro) has warned that Nigeria’s worsening insecurity will remain unresolved unless the Almajiri system is decisively dismantled within the next five years, cautioning that continued neglect could destabilise not only Nigeria but the wider West African subregion.
The warning was issued by PeacePro’s Executive Director, Abdulrazaq Hamzat, following a fact-finding and stakeholder engagement tour across seven states in Northern Nigeria, where the organisation examined links between insecurity and the Almajiri crisis.
Hamzat said the tour revealed a disturbing pattern of normalised child abandonment, often justified on cultural and religious grounds, which has produced millions of socially excluded children and continues to fuel banditry, extremism and organised criminal violence.
He described Nigeria’s security challenges as the long-term consequence of systemic neglect of children.
“What Nigeria is dealing with is not just banditry, terrorism or criminality. It is the long-term consequence of a society that has normalised 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,” he said.
Hamzat said the crisis reflects a multi-layered failure of family, culture, religion, society and the state.
“When families, ethnic identity, religion, society and the state all fail at the same time, insecurity becomes inevitable, not accidental,” he added.
PeacePro warned that children raised without family care, education, social protection or civic identity are vulnerable to recruitment by criminal gangs, extremist groups and violent political networks, posing long-term security risks.
The organisation cautioned that if the crisis persists, Nigeria’s insecurity could spread beyond its borders.
“If this crisis is allowed to continue, Nigeria will not burn alone. The scale of excluded, uneducated and desperate youths being produced annually is enough to destabilise the entire West African subregion,” Hamzat warned.
While acknowledging that the Almajiri system is often defended as culture or religious tradition, PeacePro argued that culture loses moral legitimacy when it entrenches 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 and protection is no longer heritage; it is a social pathology,” Hamzat said.
Based on observations from the North-West states visited, PeacePro identified five key drivers of the crisis: family failure, ethnic identity used to normalise child abandonment, religious learning systems lacking welfare structures, societal acceptance of child begging, and weak enforcement of child rights and basic education laws by the state.
PeacePro stressed that its position is not an attack on Islam, Northern culture or religious education, but a call for urgent reform rooted in responsibility and accountability.
“This is not about destroying culture or faith. It is about restoring their ethical foundations. Religion without welfare and compassion has been weaponised against the very children it should protect,” Hamzat said.
The organisation called on federal and state governments to treat the Almajiri crisis as a national emergency and security priority, urging coordinated reforms to eradicate the system within five years. It recommended large-scale rehabilitation and vocational programmes for existing Almajiri youths, alongside sustained engagement with religious and traditional leaders to drive culturally grounded reforms.
Hamzat concluded that Nigeria’s insecurity would persist unless the country confronts its root causes directly.
“Nigeria’s insecurity is not a mystery. It is the predictable outcome of decades of societal abandonment normalised as culture. Until we end that abandonment, insecurity will only change form, not disappear,” he said.
PeacePro reaffirmed its commitment to peacebuilding advocacy, policy engagement and community-based reforms aimed at breaking the cycle between child neglect and national insecurity.
