Story of the day

He's calm and have the kind of looks like he's missing someone or something.
With an over sized top, tattered trouser and with no shoe, he looks like he hasn't seen water for a week or so. No sign of strength within him, obviously a subject of starvation and malnutrition.
I called him "kai Almajiri zo nan" he looked at me, with eyes filled with hope, was he even crying? I noticed the lesion on his leg
I asked him so many questions and I got the answers right, I hope, of course after giving him something to eat. His name is Abdulrazaq, fifth born among thirteen. Abdulrazaq is evleven. His father, a farmer and a husband to three wives resides in Katsina state. He was brought to Almajiranci three months ago, to Kano state, where he joined his elder brother.
Abdulrazaq was made Almajiri after finishing his primary education back in his home town. Astonished, I asked him to read something and he read all that a graduate of a public primary school in his village should be able to read, stunned I became. I saw the nostalgic looks on his face as he read.
Abdulrazaq told me he wants to go back home, he wants to continue with his western education.
Then I begin to wonder, who is more heartless, is it the parents who give out their children to some Mallam in a far place and eventually subjecting them to all sorts of hardship all in the name of Qur'anic knowledge pursuit, or the Mallam who watch as the boys suffer from sickness, starvation, public harassment and exploitation?
The system use to work, it doesn't anymore. A lot of Islamic scholars have emerged from the Almajiri system. But it's all changed now, from the parents who trash their children to avoid feeding, clothing, sheltering and schooling them (no love) under the guise of schooling them, through the Mallams who exploits the kids by making them work for him and also getting provisions for him while paying little to no minds to their welfare and even their studies (no love), to the kids (the Almajiris) who spend most of their day begging for money and food, being exploited by the public and displaying all form of misguided behaviors. What they grow up to be is usually determined by what the street demands, good or bad. Generally, they know little of love.
The government isn't doing what it suppose to do because democracy nowadays isn't what it should be. The system needs to be scrapped, period. And the populace should realise that the almajiris need more than food, they need shelter, better clothing, education and top of all, love. They should be treated with compassion and sympathy.