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By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
In one of my previous writings on the subject of begging in Nigeria, I tried to point out that not only Hausa tribe begs. Other tribes also beg, but they do it in a more ‘creative’ way than the open and crude method the so called Hausa employed.
In ‘Begging: The Northern Leaders Who Also Saw Tomorrow’, it was also pointed out that some of the Northern (Hausa) leaders were unhappy with the situation, to the extent that they went out of their way to fight or show the potential danger of rampant, unnecessary and uncontrolled begging in the northern society.
Such people as General Hassan Usman Katsina, Alhaji Maitama Sule, all of beloved memories, and Rt. Honourable Aminu Bello Masari, who was at different times the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Governor of Katsina State respectively, fought and spoke about the potential dangers of the army of beggars, many of whom are children, in our society, particularly the north. Unfortunately, their predictions have come to pass.
As stated in the first paragraph of this article, some other tribes do beg, but they do it in ‘style’. They go about it creatively, soliciting for ‘assistance’ in the pretext that they are either deaf or deaf and dumb, blind, or have just changed faith and become Muslims from their previous religions, and therefore, ‘fear’ the backlash against them from their family. There were many other unfortunate circumstances where such scammers operated.
Such ‘swindlers’ are mostly found at the mosques, motor parks and other public places where there is a huge gathering of people. There, not only were they more likely to find the people who would fall their victims, they were also less likely to be recognised the ‘next time’ or the ‘next place’.
They would thrust a ‘to whom it may concern’ letter at whoever takes their ill fancy or place such letters in front of worshippers at Mosques or, still, go to Mosques soliciting for assistance from Muslims, pretending to have recently switched religions to Islam. In most cases, some of the so called ‘new’ entrants into Islam were exposed by sharp-eyed worshippers who had earlier seen the same people or persons in a different mosque.
There is in fact an alleged ‘headquarters’ of such scammers that were also alleged to be specifically sent to the north with a view to further tarnishing the image of the area as the ‘only place where begging thrives unchallenged by the authorities’. To that extent, such organisations and or scammers have succeeded with their ill intention.
Meanwhile, most of the beggars who beg from house to house and roam the streets for the same reason are from anywhere but Nigeria, they only claim to be citizens of the country because in their countries of origin it was illegal to randomly and rampantly beg in any place. Many of such people came to Nigeria illegally, most often in truck loads, beholden by many in the open glare of the ‘whole world’.
One of the bustling towns in a state in the north west of the country, was mainly populated by people from a neighbouring nation, most of who came into Nigeria illegally, but are now citizens of the country by virtue of their ancestor’s or their long stay.
There is a shop owner in Abuja who came to the town as a water vendor, pushing and selling water in carts. He was clearly from a neighbouring country, but he claimed to have come from a state in the north west. The citizens of the neighbouring country and those of some states in Northern Nigerian have the same dialect, making it easy for the foreigners to claim to be from these shores of ours.
Not a few of them were very small male children that were no more than the ages of three or four. Some were so young as to be barely out of their diapers and therefore, not even able to speak or communicate coherently. This was no allegation, as this writer had an example of such situations. There was also a viral video clip of two small children roaming and begging on the streets of, they claimed, Kano. According to them, they are sent out by their biological parents to beg.
I asked some two very small boys why they were out begging and they told me that their mother sent them out to beg on days other than Monday, and Friday, the two days within the week which she came out with the children but remained in the background. Only the children did the begging and where they were given money, the mother took it away from them.
Other three boys said they were from Sokoto town from where they were born but sent to Katsina for Islamic education. While there, they were told to beg so as to be able to feed themselves. When this writer enquired from the boys why they had to come all the way from Sokoto to read, as if there were no such places in the ancient center of Islamic study, the oldest of them, who himself was not more than six years, claimed that their father was an ‘orphan’ whose father had died, “leaving him to beg” with the mother of the (three) boys as the lead, in front of him. So the little boys were told by the (wicked) parents.
The smallest of the three could not even differentiate between the values of various Nigerian currencies. And all three were supposed to be from the same parents. Father and mother.
There is a ‘rich’ man in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, who said he was told that his biological parents sent him to a state capital in the north west in his infancy to ‘study’ and fend for himself at such a tender age. That was why he expressed extreme hatred for his parents whenever the mention of parents was made.
The pool of idle beggars and out of school children, said to number about 14 million in the northern part of the country, had become a veritable ground for recruitment for the various outlaws groups, especially none state actors who kill hundreds if not thousands every year in the area, notably Boko Haram and the merciless rouges, vaguely referred to as bandits.
I used the word ‘vaguely’, because the activities of many militant groups in some states were allegedly said to have been carried out by the ‘bandits’. A militant caught by the police somewhere in a state in the north central part of the country made the confession, claiming that many of the atrocities attributed to the bandits, were actually committed by militants, who ape the mannerism of Fulfulde and spoke the language fluently.
Some of the latter-day suicide bombers, most especially breast feeding women, were recruited, often unknown by them, from the vast pool of these so called beggars. And there was no way for such people to realise the fact of the matter, as it occurred when it was too late for them to realise what had happened.
There were also the many refugee camps that sprung up as a result of the displacement of villages by bandits in some states in the north. The camps were mostly found in state capitals and other urban centres, which a lot of some lazy local people capitalise on, and become ‘refugees’ themselves. They too go from house to house and place to place, begging for, preferably, money.
Then there were the so called beggars, majority of whom were illiterate, who waited outside chemist shops, asking every genuine customer to assist and give them the ‘balance’ to effect their purchase, showing outdated doctor’s proscription.
Some other almajiri who came to the capitals and other urban centres for learning at Qoranic schools ended up in the services of free women or found themselves doing some professions that those who saw themselves as enlightened, would not touch with the proverbial ‘ten-foot’ pole, as they considered it to be beyond their dignity.
Most, if not all, of these were happening in Nigeria, because most of the leaders and or elite were alleged to be supporting the banditry, so as to ward off attention from their illegal activities, especially in the area of (illegal) mining of one or some of the abundant in demand mineral resources the area is blessed with.
May the blind rush for the accumulation of money not continue to dictate the way and manner our leaders lead us in Nigeria. May it also stop being the reason for the rampaging corruption that has become our albatross among the community of developed nations.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.
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