Inside the lives of Abuja beggars’ kids

Muhammed Salisu inherited a family business from his father and in his over fifty years on earth has kept faith with the family’s business as a means of earning a living. Now contemplating retirement he is in a hurry to ensure that all of his 18 children learn the ropes of the family’s business so […]

Muhammed Salisu inherited a family business from his father and in his over fifty years on earth has kept faith with the family’s business as a means of earning a living. Now contemplating retirement he is in a hurry to ensure that all of his 18 children learn the ropes of the family’s business so they can fend for themselves just as he had relied on the business all his life to start a family, raise his children and provide them with the future which in his reckoning as family head is best for them.

Sitting on a mat at the corner of the dirt-strewn road in his dirty garb with a bowl sitting in front of him he may not cut the picture of a professional, especially in the midst of Abuja’s busy urban suburb where workers clutching laptop bags and briefcases hurry down the road to take buses on their way to offices, banks, companies and big markets. But, having embarked on his profession since he was a child and now having co-opted his four wives and children into the profession, he probably possesses more professional qualifications than most of the busy urbanites that sometimes ignore him and hurry down on their way.

He told Weekly Trust: “I took over begging from my father as he used to take us along with him back in Bauchi when we were young. So it has been part of the family and I cannot change it. My children are in it right now, some of them have gone under the bridge to beg while some are in the market. Some of them are in other states, while the young ones that can’t comprehend the trade are still at home with my wives.”

Welcome to Nigeria’s fastest growing family business. Salisu has so much faith in his line of business that he retorts on being asked if he is not ashamed of begging for a living that, “Look, let me tell you something, there is more dignity in begging than to steal.”

And as for the idea of sending his children to school so they could acquire education and becoming like the urbanites that he daily solicits for alms from he scoffs and says:  “It is mere waste of time and resources.” Again, he reiterates the foundation that underlies his faith in begging with words to the effect that “after all we are just begging, we are not stealing or anything like that.”

With his transistor radio lurking somewhere in his pocket Salisu’s ears are privy to the daily tales of corruption involving top government officials and gory tales of armed bandits who waylay travelers on Nigeria’s road and dispossess them of money and valuables, news which are regularly churned out through the media. So he bristles with anger at any suggestion that he is doing anything wrong when there are worse crimes out there and makes his point with the confidence and dignity of one who knows what he is really about.

This is no accident, something he and his fellow professionals will tell you. Their children have a better stab at a future taking to begging as a means of living, they say. Hazara Hussain, 35, is a mother of eight who begs not too far away from the spot where Salisu could claim as an office. She says about co-opting her children into the begging trade: “For my kids school is out of the business, this is where they will school and graduate. It is a family business, if we can sustain ourselves this way, why should we bother about school where we would be giving away our money to others?”

Like busy power couples who work and live apart from each other in big Nigerian cities, Hazara says she lives apart from her husband who is a beggar based in Kano. The third of four wives she says she came to Abuja to ply the trade with his consent when it became obvious that the money he makes from begging cannot fend for the family. “We are four wives and we all used to depend on our husband till it became difficult for him to cater for all of us,” she says. “So he told us to get something doing and I suggested I would want to go outside Kano for my own begging and he obliged. So he told me how to go about it and also told me to involve the kids in it because that is what they would use to survive in this society of ours and the world as a whole.”

Hazara’s twin children, Hassana and Hussain, barely above two years, already show good grasp of the business and will quickly stretch forth their little hands with a smile whenever money is offered to them. Proud of the twins growing prowess, Hazara says they have brought good luck to her. Now three years in the trade, she says, “I don’t plan on leaving this trade or area soon; it has been the most lucrative for me. I will only go back home for the Sallah celebration and I will be back full time.”

While their parents stay in the background supervising them, the children learn how to try their luck with strangers and how to cope with rebuffs. Loitering without shoes on pavements made muddy and dirty from rains and winds scattering dirt and debris, what the children have going for them is the innocence of childhood which makes them impervious to rejection and the resilience that enables children who fall to pick themselves up and continue despite travails and difficulties. But watching them make the efforts to acquire the skills of a trade so despicable is a heart rending experience for anyone who cares to take a moment in the street and observe them. Even in the best of moments Abuja’s traffic, especially in the suburbs where there is a high population explosion, is busy and dangerous to navigate. But employing their nimble limbs and a survival tactics that is a marvel to behold, the children learn when to rush into the traffic and besiege drivers for alms and when to quickly retreat even before the gridlock clears and vehicles begin to jerk forward, barely missing them.

Even for civil servants whose monthly take home pay is modest by Nigerian standard, Abuja has the notoriety of being an expensive city to live in. Among the litany of woes among workers is the high cost of house rents and the prices of staples. Yet these beggars say cities like Abuja are choice areas where the pickings are good and life generally less difficult. But it is not easy settling in, they admit. Maryam Abu, a mother of six, says when she decided to come to Abuja from Sokoto she did not find it easy settling in, especially with her six children. But with the help of a sister who is also into the trade she was able to find sanctuary under a bridge which is now home to her and her children. Like all the others her story is typical. She says:  “I was told to move down here from Sokoto by my sister who is also into the trade; she is under the bridge now with her kids. My husband does not provide enough for the family and he has other children so each wife started fending for herself and her kids. So I took my sisters advice and came here, which has been a blessing. The girls go to wash plates for people selling food in restaurants and come back and join us for begging till evening. From there we go home to prepare for another day.”

Even though like the others Maryam is making strenuous efforts to teach her children the trade, her daughter Lami Abu, has better dreams about her future. But she is caught up in a family business, from the clutches of which there is no escape. “I would love to go to school,” she says, “but I can’t because I have been made to understand that this is a family trend and I can’t be the one to break the chain. At least with this we have food on our table. I have learnt the trade and can be on my own in the next few years if things work out well.”

Fatima, 7, is the granddaughter of Muhammed Salisu, whose family has produced four generation of beggars. She says she finds the trade entertaining. She says, shyly: “I am here with my grandfather to help out as my parents are somewhere else doing the same job with my siblings. I enjoy being here because it is more entertaining and we get more money here. I come here to join my grandfather and be his guide when crossing streets.”

But few years more she will probably come to recognize the difference of her situation with that of other children. At least 9-year-old Yunusa recognizes his situation as a child beggar is nothing to be proud of. Begging along the Abuja Expressway in Dei-Dei, one of Abuja’s slums he says: “We take a lot of risk to be on the highway because sometimes the cars don’t slow down and it could easily knock any of us down but we have no choice.” If given a choice, Yunusa says he would have preferred to remain in the school he left in Katsina to come to Abuja to beg when his parents say they can no longer be able to fend for him and his siblings.

But a more heart-rending tragedy of the lost potentials of these children is brought into relief when compared with the amount their parents say they make in the street after a typical day of begging with them. The amount they make range between N300 to N1, 000 per day. Malama Indo, a mother who begs with her children in Dei-Dei says: “Most people really have sympathy on the kids whenever they see them on the highway begging for money.”

Abuja city officials carry out regular raids and repatriate the beggars back to their states of origin. But the method, while helping to clear the streets for some time, is rather ineffective as the beggars always find their way back to the streets. The more worrying aspect involving the wastage of the lives of the children recruited into begging by their parents have largely met more with resignation from Abuja social welfare officials who don’t seem to have a clue about how to rescue the children and give them a fighting chance to secure a better future for themselves. Attempts by Weekly Trust to get them to say something about the children was not successful.

But there are indications, based on Weekly Trust’s investigations, that the growing community of parents/child beggars in Abuja might really be a coordinated syndicate rather than an accident of poverty or ignorance. While most of the beggars trace their origins to states in the north, some Abuja residents say the beggars might be residents of Zuba, Suleja and Keffi, which are towns neighbouring the city of Abuja.

Professor Jenks Okwori of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria who has carried out research and intervention programs relating to such groups of individuals said, “Some of these people flood areas where they know are profitable for their business. A lot of them are from Zuba, Suleja, Keffi and such neighbouring towns. They operate like a syndicate and once word gets out that a particular spot is viable, they all relocate and camp there. How do you explain the fact that somebody who came to Mararaba only two days into Ramadan, already has a house and understands his vicinity well enough to indicate precisely where he lives in the split of a second?”

The beggars, Weekly Trust can say, might be getting away with a crime because of the penchant of Nigerians to pity those who are perceived as poor and suffering. But with the authorities concerned failing to take pro-active actions to investigate what is going on, the truth of the children’s real situation might never be known. But there are truths that cannot be hidden, especially about the children’s vision of their future. Eleven-year-old Furaira Ali, who says she comes every now and again with her mother from Kano says she dreams of becoming a medical doctor who will pay special attention to giving injection. Speaking in passable Pidgin English, she says, “I want to chuk people needle when I grow up. It is very painful when I receive it and my mother always warns that she will chuk me needle if I misbehave. I will do it to children when I grow up so that they won’t misbehave.” Although her visions of the medical profession may be blurred or misunderstood, Furaira seemed very enthusiastic about seeing her desires through.

For nine-year-old Ya’u Bello who says he came from Sokoto with two of his younger brothers and an older cousin, farming is what he does now with his father and brothers and this is where his future lies. “I like going to the farm to look after plants,” he says. “My father makes a lot of money from the sale of the crops we grow. I want to be like him when I grow up.” Listening to Ya’u one begins to wonder if hunger and poverty are the reasons these families are in their current situation begging around the streets of Abuja.