Task Force arrests fake street beggar, mother at Oshodi

Chairman, Lagos State Task Force on Environmental (Task Force), SP Olayinka Egbeyemi, on Thursday, paraded a fake street beggar, arrested by operatives of the Agency  at Oshodi.

Egbeyemi, while parading the suspect, disclosed that there were many fake beggars pretending and deceiving innocent members of the public with different illnesses or diseases.

He said the Agency was collaborating with relevant  government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs)to get rid of these beggars on streets/roads in the state.

The Task Force chairman called on people to stop parading themselves with affliction of fake killer diseases/ illnesses in order to attract sympathy from the public.

He, however, said  the  state Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, had directed that the suspect be immediately charged to court.

This was just as he appealed members of the public to stop giving arms to fake beggars, who he said, were trooping into the state in large numbers on daily basis.

The suspect, Mrs Chinagoro Uwenke,  40, confirmed that she rapped her son’s leg with 2 rolls of white bandages and poured GV blue ink on the leg everyday, in order to deceive members of the public to give arms to the innocent boy.

Uwenke said  she and her son lived at Olokodana, near Ijora-Olopa area at Oyingbo, adding that she stopped her son, who was at JSS II at Oworebiri Secondary School at Ata Town in Abia State, from proceeding further in his education career in order to undertake street begging when she realised that it was a lucrative business where she made between N3,500 and N5,000 on daily basis.

“I took my son, Sunny Uwenke, an 11- year- old to Lagos five years ago to beg for arms while the remaining five children are at Ata Town in Abia State with their father,” she said.