THE decision of the Lagos State government to ban begging and street hawking has continued to generate reactions from residents, especially those directly affected by the policy. The government recently announced the setting up of a special task force to enforce the ban which it described as part of measures to sanitise the streets and curb crimes in the state.
The government backed the action against begging and street trading with Section 157 (1(b) and (e) of the Criminal Law 2015, which describes nuisance as any person who prevents the public from having access to any part of a highway by an excessive and unreasonable use of it or does any unlawful act which causes inconveniences or damage to the public.
People living with disabilities in the state have threatened to protest against the government action.
The state Commissioner for Youths and Social Development, Olusegun Dawodu, during a recent press conference, which was also attended by his Information and Strategy counterpart, Gbenga Omotoso and the state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, described the setting up of the task force against begging and street hawking as necessary.
Dawodu said: “The state government will deploy a lot of human and material resources towards enlightenment and sensitisation via different media platforms. As they say, enlightenment becomes entertainment without enforcement. That is why the way to go now is to enforce compliance with the laws of our state for sanity to reign in our society.
“Street begging is a social vice that we cannot afford to watch until it attains an uncontrollable level before we act. Otherwise, all the good plans and programmes to transform our state would be adversely affected. The same goes for street hawking.
“This has become big business to some groups of people. Our investigation revealed that beggars and hawkers (children and adults) are transported regularly from other parts of the country to Lagos with the sole aim of doing this odious ‘business’ that demeans humanity and abuses innocence in the case of children, who are being pushed into this degrading trade.”
While some Lagosians have thrown their weights behind the government policy, others faulted the government for implementing such policy at a time when many people are facing hunger and other threats against their social well-being.
In a chat with Saturday Tribune, Alhaji Azeez Makanjuola of Olorunto Street in the Aboru Area of Agbado Oke Odo Local Council Development Area expressed delight at the decision of the state government on street begging. According to him, if well-implemented, the policy will go a long way in checking the increasing rate of crime in the city.
“For me, I will support every effort of the state government at ridding the state of criminal elements. Remember, one of the reasons given by the government is that criminals are using begging as a decoy to unleash mayhem on innocent residents. So, any policy that would check this is highly welcome,” he stated.
Alhaji Makanjuola added that one of his sons was once robbed in traffic in the Dopemu area some months ago by a group of boys that posed as traffic traders. He said “it was a sad experience and, unfortunately, that had been the tale from different areas of the city in the past few months. So, any policy that would bring peace to the city should be highly welcomed by any right-thinking resident.”
Noah Adeyemi, another resident, argued that besides security concerns, such steps had become imperative for aesthetic reasons. He noted that if the state is to realise its mega-city dream, it has to have a way of dealing with the unsightly scenes of street traders and destitute dotting various spaces in the city.
“Street begging and trading should never be common spectacles in a city aspiring to be one of the mega ones across the globe. Go to Iyana Ipaja, Abule Egba and other parts of the metropolis, you will see large concentrations of destitute, beggars and even street traders. Sometimes they even endanger their own lives doing what they do. To make matters worse, their ranks are now being infiltrated by criminals,” he stated
But a tour round the metropolis by Saturday Tribune on Wednesday showed no signs of a city bracing up for such a reforms. For instance, at Iyana Ipaja and Abule Egba, clusters of beggars running after motorists and pedestrians remained the order. Interestingly, some posh parts of the city such as the Ikeja Government Reservation Area (GRA), where the high and the mighty live, are also not spared.
Although not in clusters or groups, one or two of such beggars were seen doing what they knew how to do best when one of our correspondents visited. At Oba Akinjobi Way in Ikeja GRA and the popular Adekunle Fajuyi Way, it was business as usual for street traders and beggars.
Moses, who sold men’s sandals and slippers around Adekunle Fajuyi Way, told Saturday Tribune that trading in traffic remained the only option for him for now.
The trader said: “That is the only way I can keep body and soul together for now. Where will I get millions of naira to open a shop and stock it at this austere period? What I do for now is to go to where I collect these sandals, pay some deposits, sell the items and pay the balance. I take another set of wares on completion of payment. Help us beg the government to temper justice with mercy.”
Moses got a sympathiser in Mr Jimoh Alamu, a resident of Sobo Arobiodu Street in Ikeja. Alamu opened that the state government should find a way of sorting out the issue of street trading and begging. The father-of-three disagreed with the argument that traffic traders were responsible for the rise in crime rate within the metropolis, describing that as tantamount to giving the dog a bad name so as to hang it. He said: “I support the ban wholeheartedly but I believe that it should be done in a way that it will not create another problem for us. If you suddenly stop the means of living of these people, most of them still bubbling with energy, we might have a more difficult situation on our hands.”
Reacting to the development, an aviation security expert and former military commandant at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu (retired), described the government announcement as a unilateral reaction and not a state law.
Ojikutu said based on the fact that the pronouncement did not have the state legislature’s backing, it would end in futility. The former military man said: “I don’t think the government can succeed if its action is challenged in a competent court. What he needs to do is to collect these children from their parents and send them to welfare homes with primary, secondary and technical schools using money from the state security votes.”
Ojikutu cautioned that if the government insists on going ahead with the plan, it would only be creating hardened bandits with “these children graduating from the prisons now called correction centers.”
Reverse ban or we will protest –Physically challenged people
People Living with Disabilities in the state have expressed their readiness to battle the state government head-on over ban on street begging and hawking in the state.
The chairman of People Living with Disabilities in the state, Kehinde Oshilaja, told Saturday Tribune that a non-governmental organisation, Centre for Disability Issues, had issued a three-month reversal notice to the state government on behalf of the physically challenged persons and street beggars in the state whose daily survival revolves around begging.
The ban, according to him, is a testimony to the insensitivity of the current administration to the plight of the physically challenged and street beggars in the state, noting that the government has failed to put into consideration the deformity and other health challenges being faced by many of these beggars that forced them to the streets before imposing such ban.
Oshilaja advised the government to look critically into the challenges of people living with disabilities, especially the aged, with a view to ameliorating their conditions of living, as many of them do not wish to beg for alms but for circumstances beyond their control. He suggested a monthly allowance of N20, 000 for each of the aged beggars and creation of opportunities for the young physically challenged to thrive. This allowance, he said, would help them to sustain and maintain themselves in their own way and shun begging.
He said: “We have people with various forms of disability. The deaf can be integrated into farming while the crippled among us can be integrated into crafts. Imposing a ban on alms begging in such economy as ours is inhuman and insensitive.
“We know that scripturally, begging is wrong but this does not justify the decision of the Lagos State government to ban street begging. The decision of the government is very wrong because they have failed to provide an economy that promotes growth. What becomes of the old beggars whose children are jobless hence couldn’t take care of their own needs? How do they feed if they don’t beg?
“The government should take good care of physically challenged people, especially, the elderly among us, before imposing such ban. This can be done at the local government level. They can be giving them N20,000 as monthly allowance.
“Has the economy of the country not turned every citizen into a beggar? Therefore, the Lagos State government should not compound the woes of some residents by forcing them off the street without providing them with alternative means of survival. As I said earlier, Yoruba culture and tradition frown at begging which was why our forefathers collectively took special care of physically challenged members of their families.
“But today, things have changed. Everyone lives for themselves. We no longer live a communal lifestyle. How do you expect a child that is poor to take care of the needs of his blind, deaf or crippled parents?
“We have written a petition to the State governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, given him three months to reverse the decision, failure which we will stage a protest to the State House in Alausa. This is a collective fight and we have spoken with some civil society organisations. The local government is the closest to the people but what development have they brought to the physically challenged and the downtrodden?
“At a point in time, I compiled annual budgets for People Living with Disabilities in each of the 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas in the state and sent the budget to all the council chairmen but only two of them responded to it.
“The government must not make any attempt to ban street begging in Lagos State because they have failed to provide for our needs and since they have failed in their responsibilities, one way or the other, we must survive. What have they done to alleviate the poverty of over 5,000 people living with disabilities? Do they want us to die of hunger and poverty? The Lagos State government should create employment opportunities for those that have skills among us. There are some of us that are talented in shoemaking and other crafts. They should encourage them by patronising them.”
He, however, noted that “although there are those that feign physical disability to beg but many of our members do not take to begging willingly, they are forced into it in order to survive therefore I can say authoritatively that once they are empowered financially, they will go off the street and the government can then go ahead to arrest and prosecute anybody begging on the street of Lagos” he said.”
Physical deformity not licence for begging –LASODA GM
Justifying the ban on street begging, the General Manager, Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs (LASODA), Ogundairo Oluwadamilare, said physical deformity was not a licence for begging.
The LASODA boss asserted that the state government had invested a lot of resources in improving the standard of living of people living with disabilities in the state and therefore allowing street begging to jeopardise the investments and constitute security threat to the populace shouldn’t be a defensible excuse.
He said: “To boost security in the state, okada riding was restricted, if not totally banned. So, if, from intelligence gathering, the Lagos State government realised that street begging constitutes a security threat, they cannot just fold their arms and look on.
“You can liaise with the police; they will tell you how beggars are being used as informants by criminals and for arms running. There is no country in the world that the authorities allow beggars and street urchins to go unchecked. There are measures to limit, if not totally curtail, their activities.
“I think we shouldn’t be making undue sensation about the effort by the state government to clamp down on street beggars and hawkers in the name of helping people or alleviating poverty in the society. I don’t feel comfortable when people whip up sentiment about disability because government is discouraging street begging. Disability shouldn’t be a license for alms begging.
“I am aware of different empowerment programmes targeted at the physically challenged and the vulnerable. So, if the government is doing that, I don’t think it will be fair to them to use disability as an excuse to beg on the street. I see it as emotional blackmail.
“Again, you can speak with the police for evidence and figures on why street begging cannot be allowed to continue unchecked in Lagos State. We know that many of these people that beg on the street feign different kinds of ailments. Many of them disguised to be deformed. They don’t usually have the wound or disability they feign.
“I have seen a person with disability who is a civil servant and yet beg for alms in Ikeja. Many of them go into begging because they see that begging is lucrative in Lagos. They see it as an alternative means of income, forgetting that what makes it lucrative also makes it a security risk. Do you also know that there is a cartel behind these beggars? You take some of them off the street today and tomorrow they are back. Street begging and hawking is a form of human trafficking. All those beggars you see on the street have those they work for. So, the Lagos State government cannot allow such things to go unchecked.
“When former Governor Babatunde Fashola tried to stop street trading and begging, they gave this same reason that they needed to earn a living but when accident happens and they get killed, they end up blaming the government.
“Lagos is about the safest state in the South West and that is because of the huge investment of the state government in security. When was the last time you heard of bank robbery in Lagos? Organised crimes are no longer thriving in Lagos; what we now have is traffic robbery and minor crimes and theft and a lot of time, these people disguise as beggars. So, we should not put wrong emotion and sensation around this.”
We will train those affected by ban –Govt
The state government promised to train street traders and beggars who will be taken off the streets during the implementation of the ban.
The government said that those arrested would be taken to special centres where they would be rehabilitated, given medical treatment, psychological therapy and trained in vocations of their choice.
The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, said: “There are places made available for them but they refused to go there. Those are places they would be taken to. This is because some people were using them to beg on the roads and some others are pretending to be beggars, thereby robbing the people of their valuables.
“Security, among others, is the reason why the state government has decided to take them to those places already provided for them.
“The places we want to take them to include Majidun, and they are about five places in the state. Of course, we would train them in various skills there and also feed them. And whoever wants to donate anything to them can go there and do so instead of having them begging on the streets.”
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