By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

Before the religious ‘experts’ take yours sincerely to the cleaners for his supposed anti-begging stance, let me appeal to the religiously knowledgeable in the online platforms to educate us where in the religious books it was made mandatory to give charity to all manners of beggars.

I am appealing to people like Engineer Kabir el-Hussain Rumah (Jakadan Rumah), Alhaji Ibrahim Katsina, Alhaji Lawal Aliyu (former HOS), Malam Danjuma Katsina, Ustaz Rabi’u, Ustaz Isma’il Abu Modibbo, Malam Bashir Tijjani Funtua, Malam Zayyana Yusuf and Ustaz Salisu Murtala, whom, I believe, are Islamically knowledgeable.

Let these people help educate the rest of us where it is categorically stated that someone would be doing a religious duty by helping others to ‘bring up’ for them the children they abandoned in their infancy or when they were of a very young age, not bothering how they survive. This they do in the name of religion. And I am not talking with my tongue in cheeks.

I did not mention the people above because I want to curry any favour from them, nor did I mean to belittle those that I did not mention. It only happened that way, because I know the former to be Islamically more knowledgeable than me, while the latter I know little or nothing about their knowledge of the Islamic faith. Moreover, some of the above, I have met physically. Others I ‘met’ only on the social media.

That is by the way, before I digress too far from the topic of discussion today, which is on  ‘professional beggars’. There are a lot of them around, with most of them pretending to be anything but that. They have a number of behaviours in common. Their propensity for being in gatherings where they easily find their victims, have particular area and method of operation, and all of them are a lazy bunch, among other things.

They are mostly elderly, in a part of the country said to have around 14 million children out-of-school and beggars, among its population. Not that all the beggar children are as innocent as their faces portrayed. Some of them are clever by half, as they play 419 on unsuspecting victims. They move with a seller of food or something edible in gatherings, pleading with people to buy the item being sold for them. The moment the buyer turns his back on them, they will return the item to the seller, who will give them a fraction of the money to share among them.

The professional beggars come in all forms and shapes, pretending to be what they are not, but can sometimes be extremely hostile if exposed. They come in the form of smartly dressed ‘executives’, clerics of all faiths, despondents, abandoned (women), neglected (parents), and the purely ‘sick’. Some of them may even be wealthier than you and I.

There is the story of a  ‘beggar’ who went to the bank to change his money to the new currency introduced by General Muhammadu Buhari during his first coming as Head of State. The ‘beggar’ was said to have had many millions of Naira in his account.

Presently, there is a professional woman ‘beggar’ who allegedly owns three buses at the NARTO motor park in Katsina. She still begs at the same address everyday without fail, barring only sickness.

All the professional beggars would appear in great need to their victims. Those gullible enough, would be hoodwinked by such appearances. Yours faithfully was a victim of those who came with a religious garb, many times. On the account of my ill health, of course.

There are those whose area and method of operation are known to most people, but they give all the same. But some others do so out of ignorance. One of such was a government driver of high capacity, before he abandoned driving to become a professional beggar. He plied his ‘trade’ in front of a particular shop , allegedly because of the ease with which such ‘LAZY’ people make money. And that has been his ‘job’ ever since.

There is also an old woman who was in the habit of going to other women in their house or meeting male strangers on the street, pleading for money to buy medicine which the doctor allegedly prescribed for her patient. She always said that the patient was in the hospital at the ‘point of death’ because of the illness. The gullible would fall for the lie and take pity on her. 

But one day her run of good luck came to an end when she was exposed for not only being a professional beggar, but a liar too. The man who exposed her disclosed that she was simply lying because she had no patient whatsoever, and that was her ‘modus operandi’ of begging.

Another lady professional beggar was only known to be worth hundreds of thousands of naira when she kicked the bucket, allegedly due to hunger. This was disclosed by her living neighbours, who were amazed by the amount of money discovered under her sleeping mattress when she died.

In earlier articles, yours sincerely has discussed how some professional beggars go about gatherings with a ‘to whom it may concern’ signed letters, claiming that they were physically challenged people who needed assistance from the reader.

Others go to mosques claiming to have converted to Islam, and therefore needed some money to enable them start a ‘new life’ away from their relatives, who would be displeased with their decision to change religions.

Next time, it was worth the extra effort to find out the truth about some people’s claims to being ‘hungry’ where there is no food seller, or being very sick where there is no hospital or chemist shop nearby. After all is said and done, one might find that such people are not what they claimed to be, but only professional beggars.

Some may claim the ‘hard times’ as the reason for being ‘lazy’, but that had been their stock in trade long before the times became ‘hard’.

All this ‘cheating’ because we are living in a society that celebrates wealth, regardless of how it was acquired. Although most of the professional beggars do not even ‘enjoy’ the money they accumulated. Still, they accumulate.

Let there be from us a concerted effort to restore the values, respect, dignity, image and prestige of the old north. The north of the Sardaunas, the Joseph S. Tarkas, the Ribadus, the T.Y. Danjumas and their like. Let us put our hands together and overcome our adversity and shame our adversaries.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.