The Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje has vowed to arrest and
prosecute parents who fail to send their children to school in the
state. He issued the warning in a bid to curb the menace of streets begging in Kano.
Speaking during an interactive session with UNICEF Youth Advocacy in
the state’s Government House, Ganduje said: “Children begging on the
street instead of going to school will be arrested and their parents
arrested and charge to court for prosecution because begging is not our
religion. Begging is not Islam.
“Those children who are begging will be arrested and their parents
will be taken to court for allowing their children to be begging instead
of attending school.”
Disclosing that his administration has seen to 30, 000 primary and
secondary school teachers get qualified certificates, the governor said:
“we are ensuring that they go back to school for their qualified
certificate.”
Ganduje added, “We hope you as development partners when we are being
accused by mischievous people; we want you to come forward and defend
us. Anything we do for the development of education, if we receive undue
criticism, I urge you to demonstrate and we will give you protection.
That is the only way we can get a change. Otherwise, all that we are
doing will remain theoretical.
“I wish what is happening now happened 20 years ago. It would have
been a different story by now. Kano state is the most populous state in
the federation.
“We want our population to be a quality population. There are some
countries in the world that don’t have a drop of oil, but yet their
economy is strong. The main reason is education, even development, and
technology.
“So, we being the most populous state in the world, we want our
population to be an asset. As China has conquered the world as a result
of the population that is how Kano will conquer Nigeria as a result of
population.”