Behold A Worthy Nigerian

Behold, school proprietor who never went to school

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Written by Dipo Laleye Monday, 13 December 2010

Danladi Yau

Dipo Laleye writes that a man who never went to school has become so passionate about education that the school he established is adjudged to be one of the largest in Minna.

At 11 years of age, Danladi Yau, was brought to Minna from Kano by his parents to learn the Is-lamic holy book, the Quran, a practice that is commonly called ‘almajirinshi’ in the northern part of the country.
The almajiri have no other business than to learn the Quran and after graduating and regaining freedom from their Mallams, they are expected to return to their parents though most of them refuse to do so preferring to make a permanent home in the environment of their former ‘schools’.

The almajiri have, over the years, turned out to be a nuisance to political leaders in the north and the nation as a whole and an embarrassment to adherents of Islam as they are always roaming the streets begging for survival. They eat whatever they could lay their hands on to keep body and soul together.   It is not unusual to find the almajiri working on the farms of their Mallams yet, they would not eat from the harvest.
Yau is now 40 years old and has since graduated as an  almajiri.
He thereafter went into trading, selling chickens. At a  time, he hawked  iced cream and other related products.  Apart from this and having been well versed in the Quran, he worked as a mallam assisting people with prayers to  overcome the challenges of life.
Yau later settled down and became a family man. Though he continued to trade in fowls, he abandoned hawking of ice cream.
Before then, Yau had vowed that since he didn’t have the opportunity of attaining western education, he would do all that he could to ensure his children did not suffer the same fate.
“I took my children to one school ( he did not name the school) and at the end of the first term, I was asked to pay their school fees. I pleaded with the headmaster who insisted that if I could not pay the fees, I should withdraw them from the school” adding that “education here is not free”.
“When my plea fell on deaf ears, I felt angry and withdrew my children from the school but not before telling the headmaster that ‘one day, I will employ you and pay your salary’”,Yau declared.
That was the turning point in his life as he withdrew his children from the school and went back home to think of the next step to take.
According to him, “I later decided to turn my room to a school. I started with my four children and two teachers who taught them”.
Miraculously, Yau’s school continued to grow in size and population such that within four years of its establishment, the school had a population of 2,150 pupils and 71 teachers making it one of the largest private schools in Minna, the Niger State capital.
The school was  later renamed Kowa Comprehensive High School and has been attracting the attention of educationists from within and outside the state because of the background of its proprietor.
Not forgetting what led him into establishing the school,  Yau’s school fees are low when compared to what is obtainable in private schools in and around Minna and Niger State as whole.
“I think this is the only way I can help parents who cannot afford the high fees of some schools in the state”.
Despite the low fees charged by the school, the proprietor said that he had been partly responsible for the fees of about 200 pupils who are either orphans or indigents.
“I am annoyed that I did not go to school so, I am prepared to help in whatever way to see that our children go to school”.Alhaji Yau reiterated.
Kowa Comprehensive Primary school under the proprietorship of Alhaji Yau has also been very consistent in the payment of salaries and allowances of its teaching and none teaching staff.
“I cannot say I pay the best salary in the state among other private schools. What I know is that I pay all my teachers their salaries either on the 24th or 25th of every month and they have not been complaining”.
Investigations showed that over N1.8m is paid as monthly salaries, a development that might have been responsible for the slow pace of expansion work at the school’s permanent site.
However, one interesting thing about Alhaji Yau is that despite the fact that he never went to conventional school even for one day, he is now able to read and write.
He said: “I don’t know how it happened. I just find out that I can read and write but I still plan to go to school so that I will be in a position to discuss intelligently like others, I also want to be computer literate”.
Some members of the National Assembly recently paid a visit to the school where they met Alhaji Danladi in his well furnished office. After going round the school, they expressed their satisfaction with what they saw and promised to assist him to improve on the physical infrastructure and other facilities in the school.
“Since they made that promise over a year ago, I have not seen anybody” he said.
Similarly, Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State has appreciated the contribution of the proprietor to the educational development of the state with a pledge to give scholarship to some of the students in the secondary school wing of the institution. This promise has also remained on the drawing board as officials of the ministry of education who are supposed to take action  have not done so.
In this regard, Alhaji Yau stated, “Government should assist people like us who are trying to help the society. But the situation is not so. It is only those who have people in high places or are well connected, that are being assisted, the society cannot grow with this type of attitude”.
He, however,  commended  the Niger State government  for its free education policy which he said if religiously pursued, would lead to the rapid educational development of the state.

Kowa Comprehensive High School

But Alhaji Yau believes that school inspectors are not doing their jobs as expected and therefore recommended that committees made up of non civil servants should be set up by the governor to monitor schools and report directly to the governor.

By so doing, he argued, the governor would be availed of the true situation of things in all schools in the state which will also afford the government the opportunity to take necessary actions to put infrastructural facilities in good shape.
However, it is not only in the area of education that Alhaji Yau has been assisting the people of Minna.
When the price of rice became prohibitive about a year ago, Alhaji Yau intervened by personally travelling to Lagos to purchase trailer loads of rice which he sold at reduced rates to force down the prices of the commodity.
Similarly, he went to Obajana cement factory in Kogi State to purchase truck loads of cement for sale at reduced cost when the price of cement also skyrocketed. With the intervention by Yau, shylock traders in the state have been forced to bring down the prices of their commodities to  make them affordable to the average citizen.
“I did this because I believe that some people are just taking undue advantage of our people. Somebody must come to their rescue.I did so not to make profit but to make the people happy” Alhaji Yau pointed out.
He reasoned that though everywhere is home, parents should still allow their children to know their roots.
“People should take their children to their places of origin so that when they pass on their children will know where they came from and can trace members of their families”, he concluded.