Koran Zaki, a remote community on the outskirts of Gombe metropolis, is home to at least, a thousand locals including many girls who are kept out of school as a result of abject poverty.
Some parents in the community who spoke to WikkiTimes on Sunday said they cannot afford to send their children to school, hence, they resort to child labour, where the children, mostly girls, lead blind men in the streets for peanuts in return.
One of the girls, Hauwa’u Ibrahim, 13, revealed that she has been forced by her parents to lead blind men and guide them to street begging so the family can have food to eat. Every day, she earns not more than N800 and the family depends on it.
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“If I don’t go out for the street begging, then we have nothing to eat that day,” she told WikkiTimes. “My younger ones are too small to work and my father is paralyzed. I am like the breadwinner of my family.”
The frail-looking girl has been doing this for three years, according to her mother, Adama Muhammad.
The mother said the family had no choice but to expose the girl to the business as they could not afford to send her to school.
“Many girls in this community feed their families off this job. We cannot afford to keep them in school,” she said. “My daughter attended primary school for only two years and it took me more than a year to save for her registration fees and uniform.”
The mother revealed that if her daughter falls sick or doesn’t work for a day, the family would have to live off debt.
Also, Maryam Ibrahim, another girl with the same fate, decried that schooling has always been her dream but she can’t afford to see her parents suffer.
She told WikkiTimes that alongside her two sisters, they provide money for the family on a daily basis but one day, she hopes the Gombe State government will provide free education for all.
“I am calling on the government to come to our aid. Our parents are suffering. We are suffering,” the 15-year-old girl said. “I have been leading blind men to the street begging for six years. My whole body aches at the end of every day.”
The Gombe State government has on several occasions claimed that the number of out-of-school children has reduced due to the present administration’s efforts.
In 2020, the state government claimed that it had spent N2.9 billion in the construction and renovation of 400 classrooms in less than six months.
Executive Chairman of the Gombe State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Babaji Babadidi said since the inception of the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) programme in Gombe State on 28 August 2019, over 70 per cent of the out-of-school children have been re-enrolled in schools.
