Government Raids Over 40,000 Beggars In Anambra
...as families use children to make money
By Raymond Ozoji, Awka
The Commissioner for Women Affairs, Children and Social Welfare, Hon. Ify Obinabo says the state government has raided over 40,000 beggars and destitutes constituting public nuisance across the state.
Obinabo who also stated that government will stop at nothing to ensure that beggars desist forthwith from defacing and desecrating public places across the state, maintained that the raid on beggars will continue nonstop as investigations reveal that some families have subjected their children to money-making machines through begging for alms.
She expressed deep concern that children who are supposed to be in school learning like others have been deprived of the free education being offered by the Soludo administration and subjected to alms-begging by their parents, guardians and adults indulging in such criminality.
She said adults use children to beg for money during school hours and atimes the children engage in stealing just to make money for the adults that sent them.
Obinabo whose ministry carried out an scheduled raid on beggars under the flyover bridge at Aroma junction Awka alongside the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA), said the beggars have been warned severally not to return after they have been raided and rehabilitated but all to no avail.
Obinabo pointed out that the children raided will not be released until their parents or adults who sent them to beg for money were fished out and dealt with decisively.
Also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA) Hon. Ossy Onuko confirmed as well as corroborated what the Women Affairs Commissioner said, stressing that it was not the first time beggars were raided under the flyover bridge.
Onuko stated that government has been on persistent raid under the flyover bridge at Aroma junction but the menace, according to him, kept reoccurring. He maintained that they were after the adults who used children amongst the beggars to make money.
According to him, some of the children steal and pick pocket just to make money for those who sent them, adding that the Ministry of Women Affairs and Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA) collaborated to carryout the enforcement as well as get to the root of the menace insisting that government wants to see parents of the children now chronic beggars at very tender ages.
Onuko also said that government wants to uncover all begging syndicates in the state and uproot them from the society because they are totally unacceptable.
He equally said that it is the duty of all and sundry to ensure that any child of school age who is supposed to be in school, is in school learning. That no child should be under the flyover bridge because it is a very busy area and any fatal accident could just waste their lives.
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