For decades, Nigeria treated the Almajiri crisis as a cultural inconvenience rather than a policy failure sustained by neglect, as millions of children, largely in northern Nigeria, were left roaming the streets, outside formal education systems, exposed to hunger, exploitation, violence, and lifelong exclusion.
Development Diaries reports that a new tech-skills initiative targeting Almajiri children, ‘Almajiris-to-Tech’ programme, suggests a different way of thinking.
Announced by New Horizons Nigeria, this initiative commits N50 million to train at-risk Almajiri youth in practical, technical, and vocational skills.
Beginning 19 January, 2026, selected participants will undergo 90 days of intensive training in computer and electronics repair, including mobile phones, laptops, and solar inverters.
The aim is to equip children who have been systematically excluded from formal schooling with skills that can generate income and integrate them into the formal economy.
What makes the initiative notable is the way it reframes the problem. The first phase includes mindset reorientation sessions, delivered in Hausa, involving psychologists and local imams.
This component acknowledges that years of neglect damage confidence and employability. As the CEO of New Horizons, Tim Akano, put it, the continued presence of Almajiri children on the streets is a testament to broader societal negligence.
There is also a pathway beyond training, with top-performing participants expected to receive toolkits and start-up support, with backing from prominent figures such as Solomon Adeola to extend the programme’s reach within northern communities.
In a country with an estimated 15 million Almajiri children, even modest success stories can demonstrate what is possible when exclusion is treated as solvable rather than inevitable.
However, the initiative also exposes an uncomfortable truth that the government should have institutionalised long ago. Pilot programmes, no matter how well designed, cannot absorb millions, just as charity cannot replace policy. Also, corporate social responsibility cannot substitute for public systems.
The system failure at the heart of the Almajiri crisis is not cultural but structural. Nigeria’s education and social welfare architecture simply excluded a large population of children and normalised their invisibility. When the state fails to plan for children, society pays later through insecurity, unemployment, and social fragmentation.
Under Nigerian law, every child has a right to education, dignity, and protection. Integrating Almajiri children into formal technical and vocational education and training systems is therefore not optional or experimental.
Skills-based pathways must be recognised, funded, and regulated within national and state education frameworks, not left to the goodwill of private actors.
Responsibility for this shift lies with federal and state education authorities and social welfare ministries. Applauding initiatives is easy. Adopting, funding, and scaling them is harder but necessary.
And without public financing, curriculum integration, and long-term planning, promising models remain isolated successes in a sea of unmet need.
As Nigerians, we also have a role by demanding that governments move beyond rhetoric and adopt scalable solutions. The Almajiri system, as it currently exists, reflects state absence, not cultural authenticity.
This tech-skills initiative shows what becomes possible when the problem is named correctly. Almajiri children are citizens failed by policy.
The real test now is whether the Nigerian state is willing to learn from what non-state actors have demonstrated and finally take ownership of a crisis it has ignored for far too long.
Photo source: UNICEF
