Kid beggars shun school, roam major roads, eateries for alms
They could pose serious threat to their host, says Security expert
Sanwo-Olu, northern govs must find ways to address menace -Yaradua varsity don
From Lagos mainland to even the highbrow parts of the Island, they loiter around major roads, streets and eateries, begging for alms and at times left over food. These almajiri children are out of school and have no plans to acquire skills in any vocation. INNOCENT DURU examines the implications of these for the pliable children, Lagos State which hosts them and the country at large.
Hauwa, a 13-year-old girl from Funtua, Katsina State begs for alms on LASU\Isheri Road without any form of deformity or disability.
Although enrolment in public school is free in Lagos State, neither Hauwa nor her parents have thought it wise to exploit the opportunity and acquire basic education. The young, ignorant girl is simply enamoured with alms begging; the craft she grew up into.
“I was not going to school in Katsina and have also not been going to school since we came to Lagos,” she said in response to a question from our correspondent.
“I come out every day to beg for alms,” she added as she sat on the walkway between the road.
“What I get on a daily basis varies. People give me whatever they deem fit and I collect it.
“At times, I make up to N1,000 a day. At other times, it could be more or less.”
Besides the issue of education, it has also not crossed Hauwa’s mind to acquire skills in any vocation. In fact, the mention of learning a trade appeared to be alien to her.
“Work?” she echoed, looking confused as she shook her head.
To make the point clearer to Hauwa, our correspondent began listing skills like tailoring and hair dressing. But before he could land, Hauwa shook her head vigorously, saying that she had not given it a thought and had no plans for such.
Many of Hauwa’s age mates who are in school are either rounding off their junior secondary school or just beginning their senior secondary education. Those who are into vocational training would have acquired one skill or the other that would help them to have a meaningful means of livelihood and add value to the society. This is not to talk about the impact that children in that age bracket in a developed world like China would have been making on the society.
But as it is, Hauwa is visionless and rudderless. The road is her classroom and begging her only skill. Many young people in her mould are said to have grown up to also have children who grew up taking after their parents who lived on begging for alms. It is almost certain that she will end up like that if nothing drastic is done about it.
Incidentally, she is not alone in this. Hordes of her peers and others far below her age flock major roads and streets of metropolitan Lagos, singing songs laced with prayers to get money from passers-by, many of whom are easily swayed by anything woven around religion.
Aminat, a 10-year-old, also does not have any formal education or skill. Right from her mother’s womb, she had been exposed to begging, and that remains her only vocation till date.
“I beg passersby or motorists for alms when there is traffic. Some people give me money while some don’t. Some play with me for some time asking me to sing for them before giving me money,” she said through an interpreter.
“I don’t go to school,” she added, beaming a smile that revealed her ignorance about the importance of education. “My father is begging up there while my mother is begging down there,” she added as if to prove how skillful they are in the art of begging.
Some younger kids seen around could also hardly express themselves and often rely on sign language to communicate their message before going ahead to express themselves in a few words.
Folding her fist and raising it towards her mouth, one of the kids of about five years moved to hold a passer-by’s hand.
“Oga, I beg, give me money. God go bless you,” she said in Pidgin as she trailed her target.
Checks around major roads revealed that some of the grown up boys have moved from begging into other activities. Many of them now run after motorists in traffic armed with sticks wrapped with foam and buckets filled with soapy water. They use this to wipe the windscreens of vehicles with the aim of getting compensated by the drivers or vehicle owners.
“Some drivers give me N100 or more while some don’t even give anything. Some of them get angry when we want to clean their windscreens but we don’t allow that to deter us.” he said.
His partner shouted ‘ba turenci’ (I don’t understand English) as our correspondent made to approach him for comments.
When his colleagues translated our correspondent’s question about going to school to him, he snapped back saying, “Ba makaranta (no school)” as he dashed off with his tools to look for a client.
Worries about kid beggars’ future
An Arewa motorcycle operator, Taheer, who spoke with our correspondent, expressed surprise that beggars are allowed to operate on major Lagos roads. He also disagreed with the use of the term ‘almajiri’ for the out of school children.
He said: “They are not almajiri. Almajiri children go to school but these ones don’t. So there is no basis for calling them almajiri.
“Many of them were born here and not in the north. When I came here, I was really surprised to see that they are allowed to beg on the expressway. You can’t find beggars on expressways in many parts of the north.
“My feeling is that the Lagos State Government does not want to drive them away because they may be accused of tribalism.
“The challenge here is that when any of them commits a crime, he will run to the north. Go to places like Alaba Rago, Agege and see what some of them are turning into.”
Our correspondent, who had an encounter with some of the kids at an eatery, reports that they milled around the place looking very dirty with rashes on the faces and heads of some of them. People dump all manner of leftover food on them as if they are less human, all in the name of helping them. The manner they run after vehicles for money also puts them in grave danger.
Writing on his Facebook page, veteran journalist, Lanre Idowu, shared his experience with one of the kids in a piece he titled ‘The Girl at the Traffic Lights’
The post reads: “Our eagerness to get home quickly and welcome the New Year with hymns and prayers was halted by the traffic lights at the junction of Adeola Odeku and Akin Adesola streets on Victoria Island. Time was 21.45 hours.
“The car windows were wound up. As we waited for the green light to continue the journey, a young girl moved close to the driver’s side, soliciting.
“Involuntarily, I moved my mask to cover my nose and mouth even with the car windows closed. Our guest was not deterred. ‘Sorry Daddy,’ she pleaded. I pretended to not see her, so I kept my eyes fixed on the traffic lights, monitoring her with the corner of my left eye.”
Idowu, fearing that the stranger could be working for some criminal minded persons, said: “You never know with this people, I thought. They come with all tricks in the book to set you up for a sucker punch and I wasn’t falling for it in these dying hours of 2021.
“But the girl, probably no more than seven, wasn’t done yet. ‘God will promotion you,’ she declared. ‘Your children children go better well well.’
Continuing, Idowu said: “As I pondered on her quaint expressions and started to look for loose Naira notes near the joystick, the green light came on, and I moved the car in the direction of home, unable to help the girl.
“Thereafter, the traffic was light and nothing stood in our way until we got home twenty minutes after. What kept playing over in my mind was the girl’s eleven-word prayer. “God go promotion you. Your children children go better well well.”
“Her opening apology of ‘Sorry Daddy’ indicates her sensitivity to disturbing my peace in the comfort of my space. The import of her prayer, ‘God go promotion you’ was that God would uplift me. I would enjoy an improvement in my circumstances.
“Since I looked old enough to be a father and indeed a grandfather, her last statement was a prayer for my children and grandchildren; that things would go well for them.
“Nowhere did she outrightly ask me for alms, even as there was no denying her intention. Her approach subtly employed prayer, hoping that I would do the needful.
“As I headed home, I couldn’t help remembering the approach of girls of her age in another era, armed with the beggar’s bowl, moving in bands of twos, threes, and fours, soliciting with songs.”
Involuntarily, he said, “I started humming one. ‘Ba bi Allah, tori Olorun ba bi Allah, e bun mi toro, ba bi Allah. Asiri abo.’
“Ba bi Allah was a more direct plea for alms; a call for help with the persuasive appeal of music. It was a song rendered by itinerant beggars moving from home to home in the Lagos of the 1960s where traffic lights were not common sight. Appealing to our common humanity, it asked in the name of God for alms, indeed the odd three pence.
“Then and now, street begging remains a reminder of the poverty in the land and the unfinished work of deploying state and private resources to ridding the land of poverty enveloped, in this instance, in idle begging.
“It is a reminder that our people’s needs are largely rudimentary—food to keep body and soul together. It is what our politicians exploit to buy votes and underdevelop the land. It is what conscienceless leaders in secular and religious groups utilise to take advantage of the weak.”
Beyond the relatively sane and safe precincts of Victoria Island where the praying girl operated on 31st December 2021, Lanre Idowu said “many like her are exposed to grave dangers of being exploited in the name of begging to douse the hunger in their stomachs and those of their parents who usually lurk in the background.”
Don x-rays implications of menace
Dissecting the implications of the rising number of almajiri kids in Lagos State, a lecturer with the Umaru Musa Yaradua University, Dr Bala Abdullahi Husaini, who specialises in International Relations, Defence and Security, said “the implications of that may not be far-fetched from the nature and the consequences that will come back to the host community.
“These children were not properly trained and brought up. Anybody who is not properly trained, whatsoever social vices that is deemed fit for him will automatically be accepted by him. That has future consequences on the population of Lagos, and peaceful co-existence in Lagos.
“The level of security in Lagos will also be affected and that has an implication over the whole plan in Lagos State, and this also speaks of the non-challant attitude of our people especially from the north, which is not going to augur well for the north and Lagosians and Nigeria in general.
“If care is not taken, for the future now, you should expect to plan for the worst because these people can constitute some groups of nuisance despite the nature of Lagos and the social vices it has. This is another problem that is coming.
“Lagos already has its own problem that it is struggling to solve and here comes another problem that will also disturb the whole activity in the near future.”
Asked about the implications of not going to school or learning vocational skills, DR Husaini said: “When you are not educated and not properly brought up, there is going to be a serious problem, and that serious problem could also affect the economy, political and cultural structure of Lagos. This will not only affect Lagos but the north as well.
“Some of them when they commit an offence or are found wanting, they will definitely escape, and their safe haven will be in the north here because that is where they were known.
“The implication is that there will be an influx of crime from Lagos to the north and from the north to Lagos, because this is somebody that is well known and well groomed here in the north with the culture, with the norms and with the tradition whatsoever.
“He went down to Lagos and is trained with the norms and values of Lagosians. Once he commits an offence, you know he has now gained an experience, he will transfer that same experience in the event where he wants to run away from the constituted authorities there. He will run down to the north with the same character, the same habit and the same social vices that are uncalled for.
“When he comes here, he may likely train others with those bad experiences of Lagos he has got. This is what I call “transfer of crime.”
Kid beggars not targets of kidnappers
Dr Husaini went on to dismiss fears that the children could become victims of kidnapping, saying: “Ritualists don’t use these children. It is one of the criteria being given to the ritualists. They are not to present anyhow person. If they have been using them, believe you me, you will not see anyone of them anymore.
“If ritualists pick victims at random, nobody will be there as almajiri because all the ones out there will have been used by now.”
He added: “Those children coming from the north, most of them, their parents don’t know their whereabouts. Most of them were influenced by some very useless and hopeless individuals to make ends meet.
“I facilitated a programme regarding the repatriation of a boy from Liberia. He was originally from Katsina. He was taken from Katsina to Kano for an Islamic education and their school got burnt and the boy became affected.
“Someone saw him and lured him to Lagos and from Lagos to Liberia. You could see the influence. Whatever the child does, he does so at the influence of somebody. They don’t have that thinking by themselves. Somebody must have initiated them into it. It is a sort of child trafficking that is done in a modernised way.”
Why it’s difficult to control population explosion
Noting that the large size of families among the people is a causative factor for poverty and street begging, Dr Husaini said: “The aspect of population explosion is a no go area because you can’t control it. It is cultural, religious and political.
“Those states in the southern part of the country are yearning for derivation and the only thing that can get that for them is by having population. Baby factories are more than you can imagine in the southern part.
“In the north here, the issue is so much attached to religion and culture. They say the more children you have, the wealthier you are likely to become. You will find somebody with four wives and 20, 30, 40 children.
“In the southern part, you don’t find such. You only find one wife and some side chics. The side chics could be as many as you can have and not all the side chics have children for the man. So we can’t control the population among those people.
“The only way you can control the population is when you are providing everything for the people. Access to health in Nigeria is not free. Education is not free. Basic social amenities are not free. When you don’t give those things free, who are you to tell me the number of children I should give birth to?
“It is only when you give all these free that you can say that anybody that gives birth above X number will not get all those benefits. That is when you can have some measures regarding that.
“As long as you don’t provide for them, you cannot control their population because of politics, religion and culture.”
Sanwo-Olu, north’s governors should address problem
Proffering solution to the menace, Dr Husaini said: “The earlier the governors at their own level decide and address the issue, the better for them. The Lagos State governor and his northern counterparts will have to find ways of addressing the problem. They should do that at their own level.
“There should be proper sensitization, proper community awareness and implication of this. Let them know, let them hear and let them think what will happen.
“Let the governors collaborate. If the Lagos government can decide to evacuate all of them, when they come here (north), people from Katsina will also decide to go, people from Sokoto will also decide to go.
“Let there be a synergy, a collaboration between the governors from the north and the south. Let them understand where each one of them is coming from so that the earlier they draw the line to address this collectively, the better for all of them.”
Ruling out fears that tribal sentiments may be attached to the move, the erudite lecturer said: “If the governors meet and discuss, it will be fine by all and sundry. Media houses will capture that and that will also form part of the sensitization programme that the concerned governors will do to their people. So the issue that they will chase northerners from the south will not happen. It will only happen when the sensitization is too low. When the sensitisation is at the higher level and continuously being carried out by all and sundry, the issue will automatically be erased.”
Officials of the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development was yet to respond to our message on what it is doing to address the menace as at the time of filing this report.
