- At dawn in Dutse, when the streets were still quiet and the dust had not yet risen, a small barefoot boy would already be awake. His feet knew the ground well. His stomach often ached with hunger. In his hands, there was nothing to show for the day ahead—except resolve. His name was Ahmad Isa, and like many almajiri children, his life revolved around survival, faith, and endurance.
Ahmad had come from Gaya in Kano State as a child, sent away with the hope that learning the Qur’an would shape his future. Instead, the days were hard. Food was uncertain. Shelter was temporary. Childhood passed quickly. Yet he held on to dignity. He did not beg. He worked—running errands, cleaning compounds, carrying loads—anything honest that could earn him a meal. Between these small labors, he hurried to Islamiyya classes, believing that knowledge, even in fragments, was worth holding onto.
The streets of Dutse saw many boys like Ahmad. Most passed unnoticed. But one day, someone looked closer.
Mr. Alan Maiyaki, a federal public servant posted from Edo State, noticed the quiet discipline in the boy. He saw a child who worked without complaint, who spoke with humility, and who carried himself with purpose despite having so little. What followed was not a grand gesture, but a deliberate one: he enrolled Ahmad in primary school.
That single decision shifted the direction of a life.
For Maiyaki, it was personal. Raised by a mother who spent decades teaching, shaped by years of service and development work, he believed deeply in education as a right, not a privilege. After receiving an NYSC award in 2006, he had made a promise to himself—to keep at least one child in school. Ahmad became the living outcome of that promise.
School did not erase Ahmad’s struggles, but it gave them meaning. He learned to balance Qur’anic studies with formal education, discipline with curiosity, patience with ambition. He studied hard. He stayed focused. Step by step, he moved forward—through primary school, then secondary school at Dutse Capital Secondary School, where he graduated with strong results. When he sat for JAMB, he passed on his first attempt, scoring 217.
In 2019, Ahmad walked into the Federal University Dutse as a student of Criminology and Security Studies. The barefoot boy from the streets was now sitting in lecture halls, taking notes, writing exams, imagining a future that once felt impossible. He carried his past with him, but it no longer defined him. His mentor reminded him often: beginnings do not decide endings.
Years later, Ahmad graduated with a Second Class Upper Division.
On December 18, 2025, he completed his National Youth Service Corps in Zaria, Kaduna State. Wearing his NYSC uniform, he stood as proof of a journey completed—one that began with hunger, faith, and perseverance, and ended with service to the nation.
For his mother, Halima Isa, the moment carried decades of unspoken pain and quiet hope. Widowed when Ahmad was only two years old, she never imagined a life beyond survival for her son. Now, she speaks simply, her voice heavy with meaning: she is the mother of a graduate.
His first Islamic teacher, Malam Hassan Yalwawa, remembers teaching Ahmad when he was just five. To him, the story is not extraordinary—it is evidence. Evidence that when almajiri children are given care, opportunity, and belief, they rise like any other child.
Ahmad did not stop at personal success. While still in school, he learned tailoring, mastering a skill with the same patience that once carried him through hunger. Today, he runs a tailoring shop in Dutse, training five apprentices. In the quiet rhythm of needle and fabric, he gives others what was once given to him—a chance.
Ahmad’s story is not about escape alone. It is about connection. About a child who refused to surrender to circumstance, and a man who chose compassion over indifference. It is about how one act—simple, intentional, human—can bend the path of a life, and in doing so, remind a nation of what is still possible.
