Officials of the Social Development Secretariat SDS in the Federal Capital Territory Administration FCTA have given a clean bill to a notorious beggar, Hadiza Ibrahim who was recently caught with huge cash amounting to N500, 000 and $100.
According to the administration, reports of its preliminary investigations showed that Hadiza has no links with drug peddlers, arms dealers, kidnap gangs, and other organized criminal syndicates.
Instead, officials said the money was an accumulation of her N2,000 daily contribution.
Hadiza was arrested a few days ago at a junction along the Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent, in Wuse 2 District of Abuja, but reports of her profiling showed that she had been severally apprehended in the past 10 years by city officials for begging in designated places.
Addressing journalists Thursday in Abuja, Acting Director, Social Welfare Services of the SDS, Malam Sani Amar, said as part of the secretariat’s profiling, the Police personnel attached to its enforcement team were given time to play their role, and it was clearly established that she was not into any nefarious act.
Amar said: “Within our little knowledge and experience in discharging our duty, with the assistance of security personnel attached to us, we understand that Hadiza was not into any criminal activity and if you look at the money found in her possession, it was accumulated overtime.
“On the profiling we did on her, we gave the Police in our team time to play their role and they did what they could and it was clearly established that she was not into such nefarious acts.
“She was so wise to have selected the areas of her own begging business, where she realises huge money daily”.
According to him, Hadiza, who hails from Zaria, in Kaduna State is one of the die-hard beggars who had been severally apprehended by the secretariat’s taskforce from the streets in highbrow areas of the territory.
The FCTA official also appealed to the public to stop giving alms to beggars on the streets, saying the action is what has encouraged the beggars to carry on, thereby causing environmental nuisance in the nation’s capital city.
“You can imagine somebody dishing out one hundred dollars as alms to a beggar, not knowing that such person has more than that amount with him or her. Won’t the beggar return to the same location?
“We have established colonies and settlements of real people who are in dire need of such support either cash or kind. So, I want to solicit that anybody who wishes to give such alms or support, should please carry out such to such people in dire need or you can go directly and give them.
“Civil servants, private business operators and what have you, if you want to give alms or assistance of any kind, look around you, there are people in dire need of help, reach out to them, you will be blessed”, he stressed.
The beggar while responding to questions from journalists said prior to her taking to street begging more than a decade ago, she was into clothes trading, but was forced to abandon the business due to increasing rate of bad debts.
Explaining how she accumulated the huge sum, she said it was from her savings through N2,000,00 daily contribution, facilitated with whatever she realizes from her begging on the streets.
