Nigeria’s House of Representatives has passed for second reading, a bill seeking to establish a ‘National Commission for Almajiri Education and Out-of-School Children’.
A member of the House from Sokoto State, Shehu Kakale, and 18 others sponsored the bill.
According to the report, the bill was passed for second reading about 24 hours after former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, warned that the over 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, which constitute almost 10 per cent of global statistics, were potential terrorists.
Obasanjo had issued the warning on Tuesday as a panelist at the two-day national summit on Tertiary Education Reform organized by the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, which ended on Wednesday.
Leading the debate on the bill at the second reading on Wednesday, Kakale said, “Nigeria is among many other countries that is confronted with the phenomenon of out-of-school children.
Several members of the House, including the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, expressed their backing of the bill.
