Abuja: Northerners Not Wike’s Target For Cracking Down On Beggars

The decision to ban beggars in the nation’s capital Abuja by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike is not targeted at northerners.

This position was taken by the Arewa Youths for Peaceful Coexistence, in a statement it issued on Sunday.

The statement signed by its chairman Mark Ogah Okpanachi, and Secretary Haruna Bature, respectively, therefore appealed to northern religious, political and traditional leaders to stop attacking the minister for taking a bold action to rid the FTC of miscreants.

The group said begging in Abuja, which cut across all ethnic nationalities in the country  has become a big time business which must not be encouraged, apart from the fact that it posed security threats to the nation’s capital.

The group said Wike should be applauded for taking a decisive action to clean up the city, stressing that the act was not “intended to hurt or malign any particular group of individuals in the society”

The statement read in part, “The attention of the Arewa Youths for Peaceful Coexistence has been drawn to recent attacks by a cross-section of Muslim Clerics on the Hon. Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (F.C.T.), Abuja, following the disbandment of beggars in Abuja.

“The Arewa Youths for Peaceful Coexistence wishes to observe that begging in the F.C.T. has turned out to be a lucrative but embarrassing trade which cuts across all ethnic divides of our Nation.

“The decision by the Hon. Minister of the F.C.T. to get rid of beggars in Abuja is, therefore, a plausible development that will enhance the security, status and decency standards within and around the Federal Capital Territory and should therefore not be seen as an act intended to hurt or malign any particular group of individuals in the society.”

Six days ago, the minister announced a crack down on street begging saying “Abuja is turning into a beggar city.”

“If you know you have a sister or brother who is a beggar, please, from next week, we’ll carry them. We’ll take them out,’ Wike warned.

Meanwhile, the beggars have replied the minister saying they did not deliberately chose to beg, that the economic situation in the country should be blamed.