Senator Shehu Sani, former Senate Committee Chairman on Local & Foreign Debts in the 8th Senate has lambasted Northern Governors over moves to criminalize street begging by Almajiri in the country.
Reacting to criminalization of street begging by Governors of kaduna, Kano, Gombe and Nassarawa States, Senator Sani said these same governors from the North who used the beggars to win elections and demonized their opponents, now want criminalized them.
According to the former lawmaker, “beggars are tragic victims and direct result of a nation failed by its successive governing elites. You can’t end begging without ending poverty and illiteracy.
“You can arrest beggars but you can’t end begging as long as the social, cultural, political and economic factors that contribute to begging exists. Many states in the country in the last twenty years tried to criminalize begging but failed,” he said in a Statement.
Press statement
A LAW ALONE CANNOT END BEGGING IN THE NORTH.
1.Begging in Northern part Nigeria is a direct result of poverty,neglect,social,cultural and religious factors combined.
2.Religious leaders sanctify Begging by giving it a Devine interpretation and reverence and political leaders generates Beggars by impoverishing and pauperizing the people.
3.To imagine a society without beggars in a nation strangulated by social injustice and systemic poverty is an illusion.
4.The Northern Political leaders should understand that its impossible to compose a paradise without beggars in a hell they created over the years.
5.Beggers are tragic victims and direct result of a nation failed by its successive governing elites.You can’t end begging without ending poverty and illiteracy.
6.You can arrest beggars but you can’t end begging as long as the social,cultural,political and economic factors that contribute to begging exists.Many states in the country in the last twenty years tried to criminalize begging but failed.
7.They used beggers to win elections and demonize their opponents and now want to Criminalize them.
8.We should ask ourselves and find answers,why should call we the Hausas control the political levers in the country for long and still the poorest in the country?
9.Crude oil has not enrich the people of Niger Delta and political power has neither brought wealth nor peace in the north.
9.Education,Employment,Empowerment and boldly confronting cultural and social factors that aid and abet begging is the right step to take.
10.Arresting and jailing beggars amounts to hiding our problems and not solving them.
Senator Shehu Sani. Kaduna.