Lagos State Govt jailed 120 beggars, ejects 1,708 others

No fewer than 120 beggars and destitutes have been convicted and remanded in prison just as 1,708 beggars have been sent packing from Lagos State to their various states and countries by the Lagos State Government.

Special Adviser to the Governor on Youth and Social Development, Dr. Dolapo Badru revealed this yesterday at a ministerial press conference at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, Secretariat in Alausa, Ikeja, ahead of the sixth anniversary commemoration of Governor Babatunde Fashola’s administration.

He decried the fact that various reactions from civil society organisations have trailed the state government’s clampdown on beggars noting that the present administration respects the rights of persons living with disabilities but, however, will not bend the law when such groups of persons fall foul of the law.

“Nearly everyday when my men go on enforcement, this same set of people draw up daggers and knives and maim my staff, they stab them, bite them and defecate on them just to evade arrest because they have broken the law and when such a person is taken to court to be convicted, a person sitting down in his air conditioned office will rain abuses on us for doing what is right”.

He noted that some of those convicted and jailed pose as beggars in traffic situations to rob unsuspecting motorists of their valuables, vowing that the government will not stop to clamp down on them until the trend is nipped in the bud.

On the 1,708 beggars and destitute ejected from the state, Badru said they were either transferred to their States of origin, or repatriated to their countries for reintegration.