In a country where “education” is too often reduced to certificates, school gates, and the ability to tick boxes on a form, one of Nigeria’s most overlooked intellectual treasures continues to sit quietly in our streets, barefoot—and brilliant.
Behold the latest “uneducated,” “stark illiterate,” “out-of-school” child, at least according to the so-called experts who themselves can barely complete a school form without autocorrect rescuing them.
Yet this same Almajiri, dismissed by many as academically empty, has achieved what most university graduates can’t: memorising an entire holy book in a language not his own, mastering an ancient script many critics cannot even recognise, and writing lengthy passages from memory with the ease of a seasoned scholar. No spell-check. No Google. No second draft. Just raw, disciplined intellect.
The true irony?
Those most eager to label him “illiterate” would struggle to produce two coherent sentences—in any language, using any script—without technology, frustration, and a few tears along the way.
This growing contradiction strikes at the heart of a national crisis: our dangerously narrow understanding of what it means to be “educated.” We live in an era where brilliance comes in diverse forms, yet our systems recognise only one pathway—the Western classroom—leaving millions of gifted young learners unfairly excluded and wrongly judged.
Educational policymakers continue to overlook the depth, discipline, and cognitive power displayed daily by these young Qur’anic scholars. Their abilities—rooted in memory, focus, linguistic flexibility, and resilience—are nothing short of extraordinary. And any system that fails to harness, integrate, and elevate such rare intellectual resources is a system designed to waste genius.
Nigeria must rethink, urgently.
What if instead of dismissing them, we built bridges between Qur’anic learning and modern literacy? What if we acknowledged that intelligence wears many faces? What if we designed curricula that recognise the strengths of every child—not only those who fit neatly into Western templates?
A nation that ignores its gifted population cannot expect to compete globally. A nation that misunderstands its own children cannot grow. And a nation that ridicules scholars in the making will keep producing graduates who can type, but cannot think.
The time is ripe for reform.
The conversation is overdue.
The brilliance is already here—waiting, ignored, at our street corners.
In the debate on education, perhaps the most educated among us is the one we least expect.
Abdullahi Inuwa/Bello Sale
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