Hunger-stricken children take over Lagos streets

Despite the resolve by the Lagos State government to clampdown on beggars soliciting for alms all over the roads, it appears child beggars can’t just be caged, as they daily overwhelm motorists and pedestrians on major streets and roads with their importunate demands. Our correspondents went to the streets to observe these vulnerable children who […]

Despite the resolve by the Lagos State government to clampdown on beggars soliciting for alms all over the roads, it appears child beggars can’t just be caged, as they daily overwhelm motorists and pedestrians on major streets and roads with their importunate demands. Our correspondents went to the streets to observe these vulnerable children who constitute quite a sorry sight in their efforts to eke out a living

 

It was quite a spectacle as the Daily Trust on Sunday correspondent watched amusingly as a boy, about nine years old, tugged at a passer-by’s cloth, begging for alms at the Ikeja bus stop on the Agege Motor Road, Lagos.

Apparently considering him an irritant, the passer-by gently shrugged off the boy’s hand and quickly moved on. Undeterred, the boy moved on to another passer-by, who gave him the same treatment, this time in a hostile manner. But the boy kept on, tugging at a clothe here and there, his face raised up to a passer-by’s, his mouth supplicating for alms, “I am hungry; please give me money to eat.”

 The boy would strike luck with the fifth clothe he tugged. Meeting the boy’s face with a smile, the good Samaritan, a young lady, opened her purse, brought out a hundred naira note and pushed it into the small beggar’s hand. He grabbed it earnestly and firmly, as if his benefactor could change her mind at the moment and withdraw the gesture.

 The correspondent looked around the bus top. He beheld many of the boy’s ilk, child beggars tugging at clothes everywhere, their tiny frames and hollow faces graphic representation of stark hunger.

What the Sunday Trust on Sunday witnessed at the Ikeja bus top has become in the Lagos metropolis a daily sight at virtually every bus stop, atop and under bridges, fast food centres, restaurants, cinemas and, indeed, landmarks where the patrons are likely to be the financially comfortable. In Lagos, these days, child beggars are actually the landmarks.

They cut a pathetic sight, as some of them, physically challenged, drag their frames along to beg for alms, till one merciful heart here and another there drops a naira note. As our correspondent observed, these physically challenged ones tended to be showered with more mercy than those with no defects. Yet, many passers-by considered the child beggars as irritants and shouted them away.

Checks by Daily Trust on Sunday showed that child beggars are not always alone on the job, as some of their parents or bosses were found to be hiding at corners surreptitiously watching how well their wards were doing at the begging assignment. A lady close to the correspondent at the Ikeja bus stop, offering an opinion on the children, said the wizened men and women sitting at corners purporting to be the parents of the small beggars may not actually be their real parents. Begging, the lady said, has become a way, for many people, to solve the food problem and some poor and hungry souls have just realised that child beggars attract more compassion from the public than elders. 

 As the number of the child beggars increases on the roads and other points and competition for alms gets stiffer, so has the manner they pester people become more importunate. They have also become somehow creative at it as they now add a touch of industry to attract attention and mercy. At the traffic light junction/roundabout leading to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, as well as at many other traffic light junctions in the Lagos metropolis, it is not unusual to see kids whose ages range from eight to 16 years holding car windscreen mopping brush and a plastic of liquid soap competing to clean windscreens. The kids discreetly take to the job uninvited. A child beggar would suddenly appear beside the driver, his mopping brush already up on the windscreen cleaning away. Of course, some motorists find the trick annoying and promptly shout at the interloper to leave. But some children just won’t flee; they start pleading to be given money, saying they are famished.

 A windscreen wash boy that our correspondent questioned on why he was doing it said that was the only way he could eat two meals a day, not to talk of three. So what has happened to his parents whose responsibility that should be? The boy simply threw his two hands half-way up, gesturing helplessness.

But some motorists told Daily Trust on Sunday that the child beggars have become public nuisance and called on government to do something about them. 

“There was a time we were held up by the traffic light around the Government Reservation Area, on Isaac John Street, Ikeja, and this boy just came with his water and brush. I immediately stopped him but he refused and insisted on washing my windscreen. In the process, I almost hit the car in front of me because I was arguing with him. That is what they have turned to. I believe government should do something about it”, said a motorist, Mr. Augustine David.         

 According to a civil servant with the Lagos State government, Funmilayo Adewole, who related her experience with the child-beggars, she has seen the children and their parents on a number of occasions counting their money at the end of each day. And what a bounty they always count, Adewole said.

She added that she was not disposed to giving the child beggars alms because it baffles her that, despite the recession and its attendant effects on families, the parents of those children can’t still control their procreative proclivities. She said she was peeved by the seeming mentality of those parents that members of the public would always be there to feed their families through alms giving. Adewole stated that those parents rub it in by sitting down lazily somewhere on the road feeding new babies, while the beggar children solicit for money that would “massage their (parents)laziness and stupidity”. 

 “The older ones move about looking for who to disturb, while the mother sits with a baby in her hand and uses that small child as a decoy to lure people into giving her money,” she said.

The children, however, maintained that the struggle for survival pushed them into begging. Dauda Bulala and Jamiu Bulala said they were of the same parents. Dada is 15-years-old, while Jamiu is 13. They told our correspondent that their mother was late and that they have been living with their grandmother and father, who they called a pastor. According to them, their dream was to become footballers and that was the reason why their grandma bought football boots for them, which they claimed their father burnt. They said they were being maltreated in their father’s house, hence they decided to run away.

They disclosed that on some days, they realise between N200 and N1000 each, depending on their luck.  Dauda said, “we give the money to grandma to keep for us.”

 Asked on where they sleep at night, the teenagers revealed that they sleep at the Agege abattoir with others of their ilk after the meat sellers have gone home.  

 Biodun Jokotoye, 13, who said he is an orphan, said he is living with his brother who he said threw him out of his house. This, he claimed, prompted him to join the horde of beggars. 

“I was doing DJ work before I was chased out of the house last year. I am trying to raise money to feed myself and buy a laptop. I also plan to quit begging if I see someone who will take care of me and send me to school. I am ready to stop begging,” Jokotoye said.

 Another kid beggar, Ayomide Jakabu, said his mother was late and his father was not taking care of him, which explained why he joined the beggars’ group.

 “I am doing this to survive because I have no option”, Jakabu said.

 Jimoh Ramoni, 11, said since he lost his parents, he has no one to take care of him. Also, Tafik  Sowongbon, said his parents were poor and he took to begging to support them.

 Many people blame lack of parental care for the proliferation of child beggars in the city. The Chairman, Youth Protection Committee of the Rotary Club, Nkem Uju Onyii-Okafor, told Daily Trust on Sunday that governments at all levels should strive to empower parents economically to enable them perform their responsibilities to their children and wards. She said most of the children took to street begging because they were “helpless”.   

 According to Onyii-Okafor, the responsibility of rehabilitating kid orphans, for example, should lie with governments, while non-governmental organisations like the Rotary would support by rendering assistance in terms of providing relief and aides to care centres. This way, she asserted, it would be easy to keep children in helpless situations away from street begging.