Begging in Lagos is still illegal – Police

The police authority in Lagos has said that begging in any part of Lagos is still illegal and that anyone arrested for engaging in begging will be prosecuted in line with the laws of the land. The recent resolve to enforce the laws banning begging may not be unconnected with the arrest of the owners […]

The police authority in Lagos has said that begging in any part of Lagos is still illegal and that anyone arrested for engaging in begging will be prosecuted in line with the laws of the land.

The recent resolve to enforce the laws banning begging may not be unconnected with the arrest of the owners of a fake non-governmental organization who allegedly recruit young, infirm persons from other states and move them to Lagos to beg.

The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Imohimi Edgal, said that the police in Lagos would soon commence the arrest and prosecution of people who bring in persons with varying degrees of ailments, most of them offensive to the eyes, into the streets of Lagos begging for alms. 

Edgal declared that begging in itself was a criminal act. The commissioner maintained that some groups of people hid under the aegis of non-existing non-governmental organizations to bring in the ill persons, who he said they positioned at strategic positions on major streets and roads in the state to beg for alms purportedly to help secure medication and treatment. 

He added that at the end of the day, the ill persons were denied their share of the money realized.   

“This goes to show that we have organized groups of persons who bring in people for the sole purpose of using them to beg on the streets of Lagos. They, thereafter, seize monies that are made from the act of begging and deny the poor people that do the actual begging their share of the money. Any group involved in that act or is planning to involve in the act of bringing people to Lagos for the purpose of begging will definitely be made to face the music if caught,” he said.