ON LAGOS’ BEGGING BOWL
l“Uncle! Uncle!” The voice calls out. But then, it is a voice of deceit. Once you are attracted, they walk up to you and the next thing is: “Please help me with N100 for transport”. This is so rampant that you are most likely to be accosted by the same person at the same spot asking for the same ‘transport money’ the next day.
In Nigeria, begging has long ceased to be the exclusive reserve of the disabled and underprivileged. It is now a sleek business which thrives on lies and deception by young and able bodies. It is no longer news, especially if you live in Lagos and other cities, to see neatly dressed able compatriots feigning simulation of various miseries, thereby turning begging into an art.
Beggars have a variety of approaches, depending partly on time and place. In the Lagos metropolis for instance, they are found in promising locations that attract wide range of people. Experienced practitioners who comprise all manners of people including those faking to represent certain deities have perfectly mastered the art of conning. Though assisting the needy is part of our culture, it is, however, important to discern between rendering assistance to people in need and encouraging acts that compromise our security and impair our development.
Many are found of adducing rise in cases of begging as a side-effect of national poverty and unemployment, but the logic of this is clearly debatable as we have had several successful people that had to contend with extreme poverty before eventually breaking even. In the first instance, there’s not much difference between an able-bodied beggar and a thief: both of them have sacrificed their dignity. This is because save for the disabled ones, most contemporary beggars could easily earn a decent living.
The truth is that opting to give these individuals money only encourages them to further perpetrate their heinous act. Ominously, in many streets today; a lot of vagabonds are beggars in the day and thieves at night. Most of them are gang members, gamblers and spies for armed robbers as well as conspirators who squander away time gaming and whoring only to go back collecting more money from unsuspecting people to continue the cycle of criminality.
The reality is that the problem of begging has reached an intolerable level as it easily erodes our core values of hard work, integrity and diligence. As a result of its cosmopolitan and innovative governance, Lagos is no doubt quite attractive for all class of beggars and destitute who daily throng the City-State from across the West African coast.
In view of the nuisance that begging obviously constitutes, the Lagos State Government is working hard to address it. The best of the State’s systematic approach to breaking the begging bowl has been provision of an enabling environment for entrepreneurship to thrive and catalyze employment generation. Hence, the State Government has varied schemes with multiplier effects for all to be involved in one economic activity or the other since the current harsh economic situation in the country could readily turn people into beggars and destitute. The State’s N25 b Employment Trust Fund, ETF, is thus one ingenuous ways through which government hopes to tackle unemployment and its ripple effects. The major aim of the Fund is to address unemployment and promote wealth creation through entrepreneurial development.
The Fund is being given out as loan with moderate interest rate of 3% per annum (the lowest rate in the country presently) to Lagos residents with innovative business ideas. The recent dimension to this innovation is a provision which require beneficiaries to employ three others as condition for accessing the loan. Few months back, cheques worth over N1 billion were presented to 705 beneficiaries from the ETF with a charge from Governor Ambode for them to create more jobs, thereby contributing to the growth of the State’s economy and dissuading the now pronounced begging culture. Hence, when critically viewed, this State Government’s wealth creation initiative is a logical one. The State Government has equally gone a step further to outlaw street begging by establishing a community for beggars in different areas of the State with a functional school, free books and free education.
Similarly, government has also embarked on mass enlightenment to utilize registered charity homes and other such establishments for alms-giving, in order to help the State address the problem satisfactorily. This approach is being undertaken through the Ministries of Youth and Social Development and Information and Strategy to encourage law abiding citizens to give alms to the less privileged only through registered charity homes and other such organizations.
Construction of Rehabilitation and Training Centres across the State is also a crucial avenue through which the blight is being addressed. Through the centres, many rehabilitees have been re-united with their relations for re-integration while many were subsequently placed on vocational training to make them contribute positively to the society. Drug related rehabilitees, who probably had lost hope, were placed under vocational training at the Rehabilitation and Vocational Training Centres across the state.
Government has also stepped up on its welfare package for People Living With Disability as it has been observed that some physically challenged often turn to begging as a survival strategy. Through the Lagos state Office for Disability Affairs (LASODA), Government has been able to reach out to this group of people by ensuring their needs for infrastructural development, social welfare and amenities, employment opportunities, education and inclusiveness. A N500m Special People’s Fund has also been established to provide infrastructure that would enhance welfare of People Living with Disability. Also, at a Quarterly Town Hall held in Badagry, Governor Ambode announced the decentralization of LASODA activities to cover all the Local Government Areas in the State.
Obviously, all that is now required is for the people to support government in its bid to eradicate the menace of begging in the State. Everyone must be familiar with section 166 sub-sections 1 (b) of the Criminal Code which prohibits street begging with adequate penalty for defaulters. Ultimately, giving alms to beggars does little to solve their problem as most of them simply return to the same spot every day, with their situation unimproved.
Unless we change our mindsets that poverty cannot be sufficiently dealt with by receiving free gifts, it will take us a long time for us to develop as a country.
