Abstract

Almajiranci, a historical Islamic-based system of education in Northern Nigeria has recently been the subject of much controversy and misrepresentation in Nigeria. There are an estimated 7-9 million students currently within the system and there have been numerous, though often unsuccessful attempts to modernise it. The system, its students (almajirai) and graduates have been linked, with little, if any, evidential basis to religious uprisings, political unrest and non-state terrorist organisations such as Boko Haram. These associations raise some profound questions about Nigerian society’s attitude to other forms of education. The research takes an original approach to understanding Almajiranci by presenting it as a meaning-making practice and studying it through extensive interviews with ten former almajirai. It uses their stories as alternative narratives which disclose the incomplete nature of the existing negative mainstream discourses. This phenomenological ethnography uses postcolonial and discursive lenses to uncover a complex interplay of knowledge, power, ‘modernity’ and epistemological prejudice in the construction of Almajiranci, with particular reference to the delegitimisation of this ‘Other’ way of knowing within the postcolonial Nigerian society. The primary findings are first, that the identities of the former almajirai have been misrepresented by the discourses and they are not the ones that the almajirai create and utilise for themselves; second, that many former almajirai place great value on the form of education they experienced. Graduates of this system tacitly subscribe to an “Almajiri Character Framework” as a code of conduct and the system is also fundamentally relational, with the Malam being at the centre of this relationship. Essentially the Almajiranci system is much more nuanced and complex than is suggested by the mainstream representations. These misrepresentations call into question what is regarded as knowledge and the role and use of education, especially its function in the creation and contestation of identities, while focusing on debates about the meanings of education in general. The study therefore has real significance for the ways that the postcolonial Nigerian society engages with Almajiranci beyond the existing negative discourses. It also has relevance more widely for the broader issues of identity, education, power and ‘modernity