Former lawmaker representing Kaduna Central Senatorial district, Senator Shehu Sani said on Thursday that the culture of begging in Northern Nigeria can never be stopped.
In a statement he made available to CAPITAL POST in Abuja, he explained that politicians and leaders in the North want to make themselves relevant by impoverishing the people who would at the end come around to beg for what to survive with.
He lamented how oil rich region of Niger Delta remain impoverished with the political power as North’s calamity.
He said:
“Begging in Northern part of Nigeria is a direct result of poverty, neglect, social, cultural and religious factors combined.
“Religious leaders sanctify begging by giving it a divine interpretation and reverence and political leaders generates beggars by impoverishing and pauperizing the people.
“To imagine a society without beggars in a nation strangulated by social injustice and systemic poverty is an illusion.
“The Northern Political leaders should understand that its impossible to compose a paradise without beggars in a hell they created over the years.
“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.
“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.
“They used beggers to win elections and demonize their opponents and now want to Criminalize them.
“We should ask ourselves and find answers,why should we the Hausas control the political levers in the country for long and still the poorest in the country?
“Crude oil has not enriched the people of Niger Delta and political power has neither brought wealth nor peace in the north.
“Education,Employment,Empowerment and boldly confronting cultural and social factors that aid and abet begging is the right step to take.
“Arresting and jailing beggars amounts to hiding our problems and not solving them.
