Chairman of the Hausa Community in Edo State, Alhaji Gbadamasi Saleh, has stated that the recent move by the state government to stop street begging and relocate offenders to their home state is in order and in line with the Hausa Community leaders’ recommendation to the governor.
He stated that street begging as it is been commonly done on the streets of Edo State and elsewhere in the southern part of the country is unIslamic.
“We, of the Hausa Community, are in support of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s pronouncement. Infact he is actually acting our script as the menace of street begging by our people is embarrassing us.
“If the Kaduna and Kano States governments and even the Federal Capital Capital Territory(Abuja), the northern part of the country where the majority of the street beggars come from can take such a decision then there is nothing against southern states doing a similar thing.
“In some chapters of the Holy Quoran it is stated that street begging by the able bodied is forbidden. The street begging that is permissible is by the disabled.”
Alhaji Saleh gave an indentikit of typical able bodied street beggars most of whom he described as women who find a way of disengaging from their marriage, and move into the streets with their under aged kids to beg.
He said that what the leaders of the Hausa Community discovered from discreet investigation is that some criminal elements mix up with the beggars to commit grevious crime thus giving the Hausa Community a bad image.
The Hausa Community chairman said the elders of the Community while in an engagement with Governor Obaseki the previous Sallah break(2021) passed the information to him with advice on the steps he should take to address the menace.
“Governor Obaseki’s pronouncement on the issue of street begging is actually his way of giving consent to our recommendations,” Alhaji Saleh summed up.
