Our leaders are not+ being fair to us, they do not see us as something in this country. They killed our parents and brothers for nothing, I lost more than family, I lost my father; he was killed by bandits about two years ago in Kano. I do not want to talk about what happened or how it happened because everybody knows what is happening in Nigeria, even a blind man does,” said Adamu Surajo a lame beggar in Ibadan.
Lamenting to Saturday Tribune during the week, Surajo, a lame beggar around Oluyole Estate, Ibadan said the government is not concerned about how people were displaced from their homes and queried if the government had a hand in what was going on.
He said he had been separated from his family as God had placed them where He desired for them to be in different places.
“People have been displaced from their ancestral homes and the government did not say anything about it, who knows if they are behind what is happening. After all that, this is where God has kept me, the rest of my families are also where God has decided to keep them,” he said.
Surajo said he doesn’t know what the future would look like under President Bola Tinubu’s government. He said he does not see any difference between former President Buhari and his “Yoruba friend” who continued from where he stopped.
He said Buhari left the masses to deal with who he chose as his successor after his eight years tenure.
“The one that kills with hunger has gone and the one that kills with something else has come. I don’t see any difference between Buhari and Tinubu, none is better. We do not know how Tinubu’s tenure would be in the future because during Buhari’s first tenure, he started off as if he meant well for us so we do not know how Tinubu would be going forward.
“During Buhari’s first tenure, he was jumping from one place to another. He was neither here nor there. He was searching for the kind of hardship to inflict on Nigerians and when he came back, the second time, what followed were not good things.
“After he was done with his eight years, he decided he would give his Yoruba friend the position to continue from where he stopped and he did, we are left to deal with it,” he said.
The lame man said cost of transportation to his home state Kano had increased as he recalled how he spent as little as N5,000 on transport from Kano to Ibadan many years ago.
“Back then, transport to Kano was fair. I paid N5,000 from Kano to Ibadan some years ago. But now, if I don’t have N20,000 to begin with, I can’t even start thinking of travelling and it has been long that I went home.”
Surajo said he first came to Ibadan in the late 1990s and the reasons why he chose to move to Ibadan were many but he would rather not discuss them because he would not find help.
He added that as beggars, they had lost hope in the government and the wealthy in the society because their helpers came mostly from the poor masses.
“I first came here in 1999, that’s about 24 years now and the reasons why I came here are enormous but what is the need to say it when no one is going to help? Anything that one would share and not find a solution is only adding up to the problem.
“Right now we have lost all hope on government or the rich people. Our hope is just on the poor masses, they are the ones that are helping us so our hope is all on them now,” he added.
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