Minister o f the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike has declared a new war. It is a different kind of war, the scope and outcome of which the minister may not have clearly thought through.
Wike, as is very well known, does not fear wars. For him, it seems, the more, the merrier. War experts who counsel against opening multiple fighting fronts simultaneously, may keep their circumspection to themselves. The minister and former governor, clearly does not subscribe to that principle.
Last week, the FCT minister gave notice of a new campaign he has scheduled for this week. It is a war against beggars in Nigeria’s capital city.
It will be a mistake for anyone to take the notice of war against beggars lightly. No war by Wike is executed mildly. He fights with all his might. And he fights to win. Even if you subdue him, partially or totally, there are always damages and debris all around, to indicate that a man passed that way. Beggars in Abuja should, therefore, beware.
In his notice about the upcoming assault, delivered on national television last week, with characteristic vibration, the minister called on all those who have brothers or sisters who are beggars in the capital city, to make haste to evacuate them, latest last Sunday. Thereafter, he warned, the arrest and removal of beggars all over the city, will commence.
The former governor noted, with manifest disapproval, that Nigeria’s capital city has become something of an operational base of beggars. That, he said, is unacceptable. His notice was pointed; “Let me state clearly that we have declared war. Abuja is turning into beggar city. If you know you have a sister or brother who is a beggar, please, from next week, we will take them away. It is embarrassing that people will come in and the first thing they will see are beggars on the road”.
He alleged that some of the beggars are criminals, a further frightening situation that warrants the crackdown he promises. He gave the beggars till Sunday October 27 2024, to vacate Abuja.
Wike’s umbrage, is not only justifiable, it can easily be identified with, by many residents and visitors to the FCT. To imagine that only yesterday, Abuja was a showpiece of a modern capital city. Designed and substantially developed in the 1980s, Abuja replaced Lagos as Nigeria’s capital city in 1991, merely 33 years ago. The city’s burden seems to be its exploding population, the reasons of which are not far-fetched.
The Abuja metropolis currently harbours all of 4 million residents. Barely ten years earlier, the population was 2.3 million people. Twenty years ago, the budding city harboured slightly more than a million people. It goes without saying that Abuja is no longer what it used to be.
Before the FCT Minister commences his promised onslaught on beggars in his domain, however, there are pertinent issues that bear interrogating, at least to bring some clarity to his action. The first of the issues relates to definition. Who exactly, is a beggar, in the context of Abuja? The second has to do with scope. In what locations do the beggars to be evacuated operate? The third issue concerns the moral basis of the planned assault on beggars.
An attempt to define who a beggar is, in the FCT, instantly introduces a problem that Wike may not have thought of. From all indications, the minister’s definition of beggars in Abuja is limited to the hapless citizens easily found on busy streets and in traffics. His notice to remove beggars from the streets, clearly shows where the minister’s focus.
The reality, however, is that Abuja is littered with beggars of sundry varieties. There are white-collar beggars, blue-collar beggars, political beggars, contractor beggars, religious beggars, professional beggars etc. The city has a surfeit of mendicants who panhandle their way through the year. Many of these may not be by the traffic lights, but they follow their own traffic, no less.
Removing the beggars on the street and leaving the other categories of beggars in their various burrows in the city will amount to superficiality of policy and inclination.
The minister may, therefore, beam his light on a fuller scope of beggars in Abuja, if he truly desires to rid the city of distracting influence of beggars.
How far the minister can go along this lane is not certain, considering that he is a politician and people of his ilk are wont to import beggars of sorts, into Abuja, on regular basis, to come in and generate noise and heat, in the name of solidarity and lending support, on one local issue or another national one. Beggars are, of course, beggars.
If, as Merriam Webster Dictionary has it, a beggar is “one who begs, a person who lives by asking for gifts”, then the minister has a problem at hand, beyond what he must have had in mind.
Preoccupation by a broad category of citizens; ladies and gentlemen, with ‘begging and living by asking for gifts’ has evolved into an art in Abuja and many are doing very well and living well, on that score. So, the minister, needs to watch it.
Then there is the moral dimension of Wike’s planned crackdown on beggars. One news platform ran a story last weekend on the minister’s quite notice and beggars’ reaction to what has suddenly become an immediate and present danger. One of the beggars quoted in the news focus, was distraught. He asked a question, rhetorical, quite alright, that captured his perplexity. “What have we done?”, he asked.
The man proceeded to give a touching story of how banditry and uncertainty of life in his home state in the northwest zone, drove him over to Abuja, where he has been surviving off street begging. Now, a notice of crackdown on beggars from the minister. So, what next and where next? There
must be many other Abuja Street beggars with their equally compelling stories.
Even as it is desirable to keep Abuja elegant and rid the streets of beggars, the minister may need to reflect further, if he will, on the moral imperative of his planned onslaught on beggars.
Against the backdrop of the increasing number of citizens who are being thrown into the street, either as beggars, one way or another, or as criminals, courtesy of the economic policies of the minister’s government, getting rid of beggars may not be necessary at this juncture? On a scale of preference, in a setting in which humanity counts, survival trumps aesthetics. Any day.
If the minister cares to reflect on it, he will so easily realize that there is a direct correlation between the policies of his government in the last seventeen months and the bourgeoning number of beggars in Abuja. The minister’s sensibilities may be assailed by the many beggars on the streets, but there are many more on the corridors of ministries, departments, private companies and where ever folks could obtain a helping hand to survive.
It used to be that citizens who lost their job in government employment, or the formal sector, easily took to sundry small business enterprises, to survive and walk themselves up from such modest engagements.
That is virtually impossible now. High price of petrol and exorbitant electricity tariff have almost totally wiped out SMES. Consequent upon this dire circumstance, begging to survive, especially, in an expensive city like Abuja, has become an option for many who, hitherto, considered that infra dig.
Abuja seems, actually, designed to encourage begging. Minister Wike may not have known that. A late 20th century/21st century-built capital city, with neither provision for mass transit,nor provision for low-income houses for ancillary domestic and office personnel, who come into the metro area to service the middle and upper class, automatically makes begging inevitable.
Even at the best of time, commuting to the metro areas of the FCT from such adjoining towns as Gwagwalada, Suleja, Maraba, Karu, etc, drain the income of low and middle-income workers. The new economic realities cannot but multiply the population of beggars in Abuja. The minister better be ready to empty the city.
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EZEANI is a renowned journalist and media consultant. Trained at the University of Lagos, Nigeria and the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, he is a widely acclaimed columnist and veteran newspaper editor.
