The weaponisation of roadside destitution

Last month, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) began the repatriation of ‘foreign’ street beggars who had somehow found their way into the sovereign territory of Ghana, and who had been apprehended in Accra and other parts of the country. The breakdown of their nationalities showed that 2073 were from Niger Republic, 28 were from Burkina Faso, one was from Guinea, and one from Mali. 138 were from Nigeria.

The Ghanaian government, in its press release, went to great lengths to pre-emptively deal with possible misgivings among the public and the international community, especially in the light of the human rights pretensions of the new Mahama government, and the fact that apprehending and expelling fellow West African nationals might appear to run counter to the spirit and letter of an ‘Open Borders’ ECOWAS protocol.

“For several years now, every day, hundreds of able-bodied or disabled destitutes arrive in cities like Lagos, by truck and by train, and end up living rough and begging on the streets.”

The Ghana Immigration Service, the release assured, was committed to operating a fair and firm immigration system, and contributing to national security and development. The ‘special operation’ commenced on May 18, and had already seen the repatriation of 106 Nigerians, and 819 Nigeriens. The operation was being carried out ‘with full respect for the human rights of the ‘migrants’’. The process would be continued to clear Ghanaian streets of beggars and curb migration-related crime.

Underneath the carefully packaged legalese could be detected the agonising efforts of an African government to deal with a widespread problem which many African societies have been reluctant to define as a problem, or to tackle frontally. Christians, Muslims and Traditionalists are enjoined to do charity at a personal level, and this is assumed to involve giving alms to beggars on the streets. Unfortunately, it may also appear to legitimise the presence of beggars on the streets, in the minds of the people, especially where there is no official Social Security programme in place for all citizens.

Although there are a few ‘indigenous’ Ghanaian beggars, many Ghanaians are irked by the fact that their streets are littered with ‘foreign’ beggars.

Ghana’s hand-wringing ambivalence and eventual tentative, almost apologetic first steps at remediation may be seen on a bigger scale in Nigeria, which has a larger population and a much greater problem with roadside destitution, involving both ‘aliens’ and nationals. For several years now, every day, hundreds of able-bodied or disabled destitutes arrive in cities like Lagos, by truck and by train, and end up living rough and begging on the streets.

For whatever it is worth, one may peek at what ‘evidence’ there is surrounding this issue, and its impact on the health and environment of the people, including the beggars themselves. Some ‘best practice’ knowledge may also be useful here.

Is Street Begging legal?

The criminal code of Nigeria has portions which may be interpreted to mean that the practice of street begging, especially where children are ‘used’, is illegal. Street begging is explicitly prohibited by statute in Lagos, with punishment including a fine and three months imprisonment.

Having large numbers of undocumented people on the streets is both an aesthetic and public health menace. They harbour disease, limit disease prevention efforts such as vaccination, foul up the environment, increase the out-of-school population, and provide a base for an underworld of drugs and crime.

In the run-up to hosting the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture – FESTAC 77, Lagos State got social workers in closed vans to ‘raid’ the streets to remove beggars, and to try to ‘rehabilitate’ them at a newly built facility in the Majidun suburb. The idea was that they would be taught artisanal skills and given start-up assistance to reintegrate them into society as useful, independent citizens.

It has not quite worked out that way.

Several decades later, an analysis of the Majidun facility’s population, as well as the roadside beggar population itself, showed that a large percentage were mentally ill, while others had some form of disability; about half were ‘career’ beggars who saw it as a way of living and wanted no ‘rehabilitation’. Many in the population were from the North, or neighbouring countries.

From a professional standpoint, very little ‘rehabilitation’ and ‘reintegration’ has taken place anywhere in Nigeria in all the years since, despite the expenditure of significant public resources. The reasons for the failure are embedded in a failure to take cognisance of the analysis of the street population and the actual needs of its various fractions.

In Nigeria the problem is often trivialised, politicised and weaponised along ethnic and religious lines, instead of being dealt with professionally. It also plays into existing fault lines in a ‘federation’ where ‘federating units’ have no control over who comes in or goes out of their territories.

A socially dislocated person’s chances of getting rehabilitated and reintegrated into society are optimised when he is placed in his natural cultural and familial environment. This means that, politics apart, the Ghanaians are perfectly right in returning the beggars to their home environment. It also means that, ideally in Nigeria, every state should have a social welfare service, and that street people should be reintegrated as close as possible to their home environment where they can connect with family and culture, using a firm handshake of back-and-forth referrals between social workers in different states. It also means there must be consensus among the ‘owner’ and ‘recipient’ states that this is the way to go.

Sometime ago an effort to repatriate such an indigene of one of the eastern states from Lagos was met with howls of protest in the media, with a prominent politician threatening to sue Lagos State for ‘billions of naira’.

Until Nigerians learn to look calmly at the facts of roadside destitution and resolve to pursue best practice without emotion and without weaponizing the issues, sadly, the problem of an ever-increasing population of roadside destitutes from inside and outside Nigeria will continue to bedevil Nigerian cities, especially Lagos, with all its attendant consequences.