For two weeks now, videos and photos of trucks, containers and luxurious buses packed with almajiris were sighted and turned back by some states in the South-Eastern and South-Southern Nigeria. The Guardian of May 8, 2020 reported that 9 busloads of almajiris were intercepted and turned back by the Enugu State government on May 7 alone. In Abia State, buses conveying more than a hundred almajiris were caught as they tried to sneak into the state on Tuesday, 5 May, 2020. Cross River State intercepted 5 truckloads of these same people on Thursday, 7 May, 2020. This is just to mention a few of the reported cases.

The inception of these travellers was made possible because of the ban on interstate travels. As of today, interstate borders are still closed following the lockdown order that came into effect on 31 March, 2020. If there was no lockdown, or border closure, these people would have freely moved into the states and constituted more problems for themselves, the natives and the respective state governments.

Recently, the Northern Governors Forum banned the Almajiri system and started repatriating them back to their countries, states and local governments of origin. But it is obvious that they only dislodged them and gave them room to flee from the north and seek new homes in the South-East and South-South. But these boys failed to realise that these places they’re running to have cultures that are different from theirs and will, therefore, not be fertile grounds for them.

However, a lot of questions have been raised by concerned Nigerians regarding this massive migration.

• How did these buses and vehicles pass through the security checks?

Market women lament about security officers at state borders and along the roads that frustrate their efforts of getting to other states for agricultural produce. They said these security men, mostly the police, either turn them back or collect heavy bribes from them. These attitudes stop these traders and farmers from transacting their businesses freely. But here we have trucks of humans, who are definitely not essential commodities, passing through tight security checkpoints, crossing through different state borders, and then reaching another region that is far from theirs. This speaks loudly against these security men and makes mockery of them and the so-called border closures.

• Who sponsored the migration?

We know that these boys don’t have any sources of income; they depend on charity to survive. But here we see them paying for transportation that would have cost them nothing less than 10k. So the big question remains, how did these boys manage to raise funds to sponsor their transportation all the way from the far North to the South-East and South-South (one luxurious bus that was intercepted in Enugu came from Kano)? I don’t believe the bus and truck drivers are being charitable by moving these boys free-of-charge. Or are they?

• Why are they migrating down East and South?

Of course, as stated above, the logical answer is that they were banned from the North and so seek for greener pastures in the East. But is that really their reason for going there in large numbers and within a short notice? If they were banned from the North, did the East and South legalise them? It is even a common knowledge that Easterners do not condone vagrancy and pilfering, so how will these boys survive there? Or is someone moving them to use them for cheap labour? Some people, on Twitter, insinuated that the Northern state governments are deliberately sharing their problems to the other parts of Nigeria because they couldn’t contain the almajiris. This assertion may sound logical but we know it is out of place. There’s no way a state government can just deliberately ship its problem to another state knowing it will create a chain reaction that will consume it too. Or are these governments moving these boys? Questions that are craving for answers keep arising from this situation. It is more confusing especially when you consider that these movements seemed well planned and organised.

• Who are the Almajiris’ parents?

It is beginning to become obvious that some of the Almajiris do not have parents. It is possible that the majority of them were abandoned by their parents. Or that they are products of unplanned teenage pregnancy. No one can tell, because their state governments failed them. If these boys do not know who they are, shouldn’t their state governments provide them with identities and keep them in homes? Now that they have nowhere to go to, they are being forced to go to places that will not welcome them.

Of course no one is denying any Nigerian from moving freely and settling down in any part of the country. But the cases of almajiris are different. They are not adults, who could manage their affairs and fend for themselves. These almajiris are children, who have no skills but depend only on charity, pilfering and violence to feed. Such attitudes are condemnable among the Igbos. It needs to be understood that the way of life of the Easterners and Southerners are quite different from that of the Northerners; there is no way Almajiri will be accepted in these places. Whoever or whatever that is drawing these children to any other geopolitical region in Nigeria other than their original homes should understand that these children belong to their parents’ homes, and not on the streets.

Over the weekend, when the letter of Ibrahim Mohammed Baba to President Muhammadu Buhari made the news, it swiftly became part of the occasional controversies surrounding the number of people dying as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, especially in the north.

Ibrahim Mohammed Baba, a former member of the House of Representatives had written to President Buhari over the death of over 100 people in Azare town, headquarters of Katagum Local government Area of Bauchi State.

In his letter titled: ‘Massive COVID-19 Outbreak in Azare: Request For Urgent Action,’ Baba said that the cemetery bears witness to the fact that people have died in unusual way in the past weeks, and begged for Buhari’s intervention as he said that the Federal Medical Center in the State is getting overwhelmed.

“If you go to the graveyard, they have a register there and you would see it yourself. In the last two weeks, they registered more than 286 bodies at the Azare graveyard. The normal death rate in the town was about one to two per day. So you have to raise the alarm when you are burying 200 to 300 persons in two weeks and over 100 per week. Our people are dying, do we have to keep quiet”?

About three weeks ago, a similar alarm was raised in Kano. Over 640 persons were buried in eight LGAs of the State: Nasarawa, Gwale, Dala, Ungogo, Fagge, Tarauni, Kumbotso and Municipal. It was a tale of horror that kept Nigerians wondering what the killer could be even though to some, it was a political mischief.

However, the events have brought Kano and Bauchi to a familiar terrain. In April, when the alarming number of interments in Kano caught the attention of the general public, and calls for investigation went out, the Sub Committee on COVID-19 issued a defensive statement, dismissing suggestions that coronavirus could be the cause of the deaths. In a statement then, the Secretary of Risk Communication Sub Committee on COVID-19 in Kano State, Alhaji Auwalu Abdu Fagge said it’s all rumor.

“This particular rumor has been investigated and found to be untrue. I beg of you with massive social media followership to help in clearing the air,” he said.

Though the Kano State Ministry of Health, in its own statement said an investigation has been launched and the general public will be informed of the outcome, many bought the Secretary’s statement and defended it against the realities evidenced in the cemeteries.

Aminu, a Kano resident said the deaths were not unusual; they only became noticeable due to the lockdown that halted the hustling-bustling in the Kano Metropolis.

“People die every day in Kano even before this COVID-19 pandemic. Kano is a big city, it’s because the city is crowded that’s why people don’t observe the daily deaths. But now because of the lockdown, people tend to observe. So please let’s not turn natural cause into politics,” he wrote on Twitter.

The numbers rose significantly the following weeks in Kano, prompting Buhari to impose a 2-weeks lockdown on the state and to give marching orders to the Presidential Task Force to unravel the cause of the deaths.

On May 3, the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force, Dr. Nasiru Sani Gwarzo told the press: “Let me inform us that most of the deaths recorded of recent and test carried out showed that Coronavirus was the cause. So before the final report which would be ready in the next one week or few days, it is necessary for people of Kano to wake up from their slumber that this is a serious issue,” he said.

While there have been questions about the credibility of the Presidential Task Force’s report (due to the fact that it was based on verbal autopsy), the fears of many were confirmed and the objective voices in Kano died down. Nevertheless, the consequences have been contagiously fatal and teach a lesson that Bauchi State is failing to learn.

In his letter to Buhari, Baba has pointed out the similarities in the deaths of Kano and Bauchi States – community transmission that its mystery has the simple explanation of a pandemic.

“We are not blaming anybody; this is a pandemic, we are just asking the government to take further action. The Federal Medical Center there is doing well; they have over 20 people in isolation there. It’s a case of community transmission like the one in Kano,” he said.

But while the calls for urgent action ring louder, the Bauchi State Government is refuting the claims of many deaths. In a press briefing held on Saturday, the Deputy Governor of Bauchi State, Baba Tela, who also is the Chairman of the state’s Rapid Response Task Force Committee on COVID-19 and Lassa Fever, said the deaths come seasonally in Azare town, and people with existing health conditions always die.

“It is a seasonal thing in the area especially during the hot season when people with underlying illnesses get complications which always lead to their deaths,” he said.

The same excuse used in Kano in the early times of the deaths that only encouraged social life against the precautionary measures of COVID-19. There was no “what if it is coronavirus” question to encourage safety practices.

In his statement, Tela acknowledged that the situation in Bauchi has been spurred by the events in Kano considering the proximity of the two states, though he dismissed the suggestion that it is coronavirus; and that’s where the danger lays, the incredible denial that keeps birthing contagious consequences of fatality.

Over the past two weeks, the number of dead persons in northern Nigeria has seen an alarming increase. With coronavirus being responsible for a sum, the larger sum has been categorized under “mysterious death” caused by ailments that bear symptoms similar to the pandemic though not confirmed. The main reason being that there is a little or no medical provision to ascertain the cause where these deaths are happening.

As the state governments and medical practitioners issue statements to discredit the link between the deaths and coronavirus, there are suggestive hints in their words that give credence to the claim that it could have been the virus.

Dr. Nagoma Sadiq of the Aminu Kano Hospital said: “It’s shocking to most of us that the count of the dead is alarming. But it is likely due to reduction in the number of health institutions available in the state.

“Because there are a lot hypertensive patients, diabetic patients, asthmatic patients, cancer patients, and they don’t have much access to the hospitals. The lockdown is affecting everybody. Our poor majority don’t even have a vehicle to take them to the hospitals,” he said.

In his statement, Dr. Sadiq mentioned underlying ailments that experts said decrease the survival chances of coronavirus patients. Alas, they are not good enough to give credibility to the link of the deaths to coronavirus, not even when death has not been witnessed in such alarming numbers for years.

Ali, a grave digger in Kano told BBC: “We have never seen this, since the major cholera outbreak that our parents tell us about. That was about 60 years ago.” His statement comes against the governments’ side of the story that attributed the deaths to season, malaria, typhoid fever and old age. Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, the senator representing Jigawa north, even attributed the deaths to fasting and heat. He said old people with health challenges are dying because of Ramadan fasting and the hot clime in the northern region.

Amidst these excuses coming from government officials, a large number of people are being confirmed coronavirus positive in northern states, among them, the almajiris who roam the streets begging. The Kano State Government had on May 7, as the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) had agreed to deport each one of the almajiris to their states of origin, and deported a lot of them to Jigawa State. Among those deported, over 40 almajiris have tested positive for coronavirus in Jigawa State alone, and it cuts across the northern states.

The proximity of these states appears to be enabling the spread of the coronavirus and the mystery disease, a fact Tela acknowledged in his statement. He said that Bauchi State has been so infected due to its closeness to Kano. An indigene of Azare, Inuwa Umar said the situation must have been a spill-over from the Kano events.

“I think the situation might be as a result of what is happening in Kano. We have strong economic ties with Kano. Over 30 buses go to Kano from our town daily, which means that anything that happens to Kano people might easily happen to us. Even during the lockdown, you would be surprised to see the number of people travelling to Kano for business. Our people know the routes to Kano,” Umar said.

Kano, Bauchi, Jigawa and Kaduna states all share common boundaries that make integration easy. So, according to Umar, no matter the height of restriction imposed, the people will always find their way to each other states, unless the fear of being infected by a deadly disease stops them. The villagers in Azare said that a large number of traders have voluntarily stopped going to Kano for fear of being infected. This development adds yet again, credence to the claim that whatever is killing people in these axes is more than malaria, fasting and heat; and needs more attention than it is getting right now.

As of May 10, Kano remains the epic-center of coronavirus in the north with 602 confirmed cases; Bauchi has 181, and Jigawa 118. The numbers increased unprecedentedly in a matter of days, and it is believed that more people are infected in these states than are recorded by the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC), but many are unaccounted for due to poor testing facilities in the region.

In the wake of this health crisis, the authorities are failing to stop migration of people from states, a large number of them, the almajiris. Many of them are heading toward the south, others move to other states in the north. However, the consequence of the free movement continues to be seen in the numbers of those infected or those dying.

As the health controversy thrives on inadequate health facilities and governments’ deniability, whatever is killing people in northern Nigeria is spreading with unprecedented speed, and it is fast reaching other states like the notorious coronavirus. Currently, Yobe State is reportedly burying more people than it has done in the recent past.

It is believed that the affected state governments are denying the realities for political correctness and to save face from perceived lax and poor leadership in the face of critical health crises. Against the backdrop of coronavirus containment, the northern governments have been reminded that the dark cloud they think is rain is actually a tsunami that will wreak devastating havoc if it is not contained now.

On Monday the Federal Government of Nigeria inaugurated a committee for the resuscitation of Ajaokuta steel that has been in the pipeline for decades. This is coming after the Russian government showed interest in the project once again. The Russian government has been working with the African Import and Export Bank to raise over $1.4 billion for the revival of the steel making plant that has been in ruins for long.

President Buhari has in October 2019, reached a deal with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. According to BusinessDay, the Russians are investing $460 million in the project while Afrexim is doling out the larger sum of $1 billion.

Russian company TyazhpromExport designed the Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd on June 4 1976, with the aim that it would be producing 1.3 million tons of steel per year. Ever since then, the 44 years old company has failed to make use of the mineral resources in the country to live up to the expectation.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who inaugurated the committee, said the development will present Nigeria with the opportunity to diversify its economy, especially in the face of dwindling oil revenue that has grossly affected the country.

“Revamping the Ajaokuta Steel Plant, clearly presents a unique opportunity to make us West Africa’s largest fully integrated steel producer and most importantly accelerate our industrialization especially in the steel related industry,” he said.

However, there is a legal issue involving Global Steel Holdings Limited, an Indian firm, concerning the past concession agreement which is said to have given the rights of Nigeria Iron Ore Mining Company (NIOMCO) to the Indian firm. The legal battle has posed a challenge to commencement of work at the Ajaokuta Steel Company.

But the Minister of Mines and Steel, Olamilekan Adegbite said the legal challenge will not stop the project, that Nigeria will not surrender its ownership of Ajaokuta Steel Company and NIOMCO to the Indians.

“Yes, the legal issues are there, but now that the Russians who built the place have shown interest, all the legal issues will be resolved. Steel was produced from Ajaokuta in the past but with imported billets. Now we are working with the Russian government to commence local production using the abundant raw materials available in Ajaokuta.

“The beauty of this proposal is that it does not involve Nigeria putting money; the project will pay for itself. It is taking a while because of government bureaucracies involved. It is worth it and we will get it right,” he said.

He shed some light on the legal challenge while explaining the process of the deal. He said the office of the vice president is handling the legal matters.

“It is a situation whereby a contract is given to somebody to perform and got terminated but not according to the rules. The corporate body went to arbitration. We are trying to extricate ourselves. It won’t affect the Russian deal. We are trying to do a coordinate settlement on that. The legal issue is being addressed by the office of the vice president and other issues of revitalization ongoing.

“There have been lots of correspondences and they have asked several questions and we have responded. Afrexim is bringing the money, the Russians are bringing in the technical expertise and we are bringing in mineral resources which we have.

“Essentially, what the deal said is that the Russian government would help us nominate a body that have the engineering skills to complete the work and possibly the same body to run and manage it for a number of years. We agreed on of course with a reasonable profit and revert back to Nigeria’s ownership on complete manage and transfer terms,” Adegbite said.

The committee named Ajaokuta Presidential Project Implementation Team (APPIT), is made up of the SGF who will chair the team, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development (alternate chairman), the permanent Secretary, Mines and Steel Development; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance; Solicitor-General of the Federation/Permanent Secretary Ministry of Justice.

Others are; the Sole Administrator, Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd; Sole Administrator, National Iron Ore Mining Co. The members are made up of industry experts; Vincent Dogo, Elegba S.B and the director-general of ICRC, Godwin Adeogba.

According to the SGF, the committee is tasked to develop a work plan that involves a quarterly report of progress besides developing concession contract terms.

The Ajaokuta Steel Company has been a bone of contention through successive administrations for over four decades. So much resource has been invested on efforts to revitalize the plant. It is hoped that this approach by the Buhari administration will drive in the nail that will seal the loopholes that have prevented the steel company from working for years.