The Federal Government of Nigeria is contemplating proscribing the Almajiri system and other groups which have become a security problem to the society and the country at large.

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno made the revelation on Thursday while briefing State House Correspondents after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Monguno said that he briefed the NEC on several issues relating to security in the country and that the Council was on the verge of releasing a blueprint over the myriads of security problems confronting the country.

His words: “I briefed NEC on several issues relating to the security situation in the north-east particularly the activities of Boko Haram which continue to remain very fragile. It is still a problem that needs to be readdressed with collective effort of both intelligence and operations.

“In the meantime, troubles of the multinational task force which has been conducting offensive operations against these elements in the Lake Chad Area especially the Islamic State West Africa Province, whose activities have now stretched all the way down into the Lake Chad Area were discussed.

“Also, I briefed Council on the activities of armed bandits and elements who have gradually entrenched themselves in the landscape. I also told Council that the activities of these armed bandits were gradually replacing terrorism, which was the primary security threat.

“Now, the bandits in the north-west have become major threats to national security. Of course in recent weeks, the Nigerian Police Force has made a lot of gains in dealing with these criminals.

“I also briefed Council on the activities of herdsmen/farmers. Their activities are limited to 16 states so far but Council is working on the blueprint. It is on the verge of releasing the blueprint to solve these problems. It is a complex problem but it is about to be resolved within the council.

“I also briefed Council on the menace of pipeline vandalism, illegal oil refineries and piracy. In recent months, we were able to destroy 373 illegal refineries and curtailed the activities of pirates.

“This situation in the Niger Delta is also affecting security in the Gulf of Guinea and we have been collaborating with the secretariat in Rwanda to work to reduce the activities of these people.

“So basically we need not just domestic but international effort to deal with this situation. The federal government has invested much in setting up maritime domain monitoring facilities and hopefully in the next couple of months we should be able to set up all these structures to reduce the activities of these people.

“I also briefed Council on the drivers of insecurity which are unemployment, under-employment, poverty, drugs abuse and rising population.

“I also made suggestions regarding the way forward which include employment creation and reduction of poverty, the culture of impunity and looking at stabilizing certain areas of the country by giving rise to affordable education.

“This is very important because in most parts of the country we have a lot of children roaming around without any formal education.

“And as the President has mentioned earlier when he was inaugurating the National Economic Council, we need to make education compulsory and free for every child in the country because the problems we face today are rooted in the fact that a lot of people  have been denied the opportunity, basically the opportunity to get formal education. 

“There is accumulation of a large mass of human beings who end up becoming criminals, drug addicts and so on and so forth. And they end up becoming tools to be used by elements in the wider society who have very dangerous intentions.

“And therefore, it is very important to proscribe certain groups ultimately running around under the guise of maybe getting some kind of education that is not really formal and then begin to cause a lot of problems for society.

“Finally, I also emphasized to Council the need to conduct police reforms. The police is the lead agency in dealing with any internal security problems. Any domestic issues should actually be vested in the Nigeria Police Force.

“The group I spoke about on illiteracy is the Almajiri. Ultimately, the government will have to proscribe this Almajiri phenomenon because we cannot continue to have street urchins, children roaming around, only for them in a couple of years or decades to become a problem to society.

“We are not saying that they are going to be contained in a manner that you might think we want to do something that is harmful to them, no. What we want to do is to work with the state governments to enforce the policy of education for every child.”