I had earlier decided to write write on another topic on begging in the north, but the fear that some readers might question why yours sincerely is so particular about that subject, made me change it to ‘another open letter to Dangote and BUA’.

I said ‘another’ because I had written an open letter to the two billionaires who hail from Kano state, a few weeks ago. In the said letter, I humbly chipped in my advice, urging them to assist Kano state in providing a vibrant education sector by building tertiary institutions that have bias in the sciences and engineering of the computer varieties.

However, I would all the same try to answer the ‘unasked’ question in the later part of this write up. For now, it will suffice to say that it would be valid to ask the question, the answer of which would clear any misconception some people might have on my position on begging in the north, especially the north western part of Nigeria.

By the way of another explanation, I decided to mention the name of Dangote (Alhaji Aliko) before BUA, because the former is not only the richest person in Nigeria, but the richest black person in the world and the eldest of the two from Kano state. Not that the founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BUA, Alhaji Abdussamadu Rabi’u is a poor businessman himself or a very young person. He is currently Nigeria’s fourth richest business person with an estimated net worth said to be around six (6) billion US dollars at the age of 63.

As stated at the beginning of this article, the open letter is supposed to start with the the Chairman and CEO of BUA to advise him NOT to be DISCOURAGED by the travails suffered by his fellow senior brother in business and state of origin, the President and CEO of the Dangote Group of Companies, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. 

He went through all of manner of lies, including making the false claims that his refinery was yet to be registered, that the petroleum products produced by his refinery were of low quality because of the high concentration of  sulphur in them and that he was a monopolist. All these indignities were mated to him by the OIC and their local cohorts in order to frustrate him, with a view to killing his refinery. The Dangote refinery in Nigeria that took the Nigerian business mogul nine years to build at a staggering cost of twenty billion US dollars.

The evil oil cartel and their local puppets nearly succeeded, when in frustration, he declared that he was ready to sell his most cherished possession, the refinery, to the Nigerian National Corporation (NNPC), in which it had falsely claimed to have a 20% stake.

But laboratory analyses of the petroleum products produced by the Dangote refinery, and the imported varieties showed that the latter (imported varieties) had more content of sulphur in them at 1,800 to 2,000 ppm to the former (Dangote refinery), which has ONLY 87.6 ppm.

Which perhaps explains why some past imports of petroleum products into Nigeria were so terribly stinking that fuel buyers had to shut their noses with their hands at filling stations in order to lessen the bad odour emanating from the imported fuel. And it was imported by Nigerians or by white foreigners with the willing connivance of some money-hungry, corrupt and unpatriotic Nigerian officials in the petroleum sector. 

The efforts to frustrate him has made him NOT to go ahead with his plan to build a gigantic STEEL plant in Nigeria. The business mogul said that the Dangote Board had decided to stop the plan to establish the steel plant so that he could not be ACCUSED “of having a monopolistic tendency”. That would be a huge loss to the country, as it would mean not getting thousands of its citizens employed and it would be unable to have the huge foreign earning it would otherwise get, among other benefits. 

It is therefore the APPEAL of every patriotic Nigerian, pan Africans and the friends of both, that Alhaji Aliko Dangote should RECANT on the decision not to build the steel plant he had planned on building in Nigeria. He should please go ahead with his plan, and most Nigerians, and Africans in general, are SOLIDLY behind and with him.

Let the travails of Alhaji Aliko Dangote serve as an eye opener for Alhaji Abdussamadu Rabi’u of BUA, who is also known to be building a 200,000 barrels per day single stream refinery in Ibeno, Akwa Ibom state, at the cost of $490 million. He should remain FIRM to see not only the completion of his refinery project, but to its successful and smooth operation. The dollar billionaire is famous for his business acumen and doggedness, exhibited in running his business, which comprises of all the products and goods that his compatriot and fellow Kano man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote produces too.

The BUA supremo might also be contemplating going into the steel mill or any new business venture in the very near future, but the decision of the President and CEO of the Dangote group to rain in his plan to build the steel plant in Nigeria, might make him change his mind. It is sincerely hoped that he never changes his mind if the idea comes to him in future.

The two men and another business magnate from Katsina State, Alhaji Dahiru Bara’u Mangal (who is also into many of the businesses the duo are doing) are both noted for the huge assistance they give daily to the less privileged and to even 

the not so less privileged, through their Foundations and, at times, directly. Their feeding programmes, which provide daily meals to thousands, are very popular in many towns across Nigeria.

Alhaji Dahiru Bara’u MANGAL’s cement factory has also come on stream with the production of its brand, the Mangal Cement, to join the ranks of quality cement producers in Nigeria. It is a money making business to add to his burgeoning business portfolio, which includes the production of rice and fertilisers, as well as land and air mode of transportations.

The debut of the Mangal cement, also produced in Kogi state, is another proof that Alhaji Aliko Dangote was not, and had never been, a monopolist, a false claim made against him by the oil cartel and its local cohorts that wanted to frustrate him.

Meanwhile, the child beggars, some of whom have their ‘mother’ or ‘father’ (in a few cases both) waiting outside the house, hardly take no for an answer if they do not sight the person telling them to take heart. They would persist in their begging until they got tired or when they see in person the one telling them to go elsewhere.  

Many of the so called beggars are not actually ‘beggars’, but thieves or informants who go to houses to either steal any worthwhile items, or to spy on the occupants of the house, with a view to passing such information to abductors or bandits. These facts became known from the interrogation of some suspects by security officials, and the observations of the ‘begging’ TIMING of some of the fake beggars.

A lot of them, among them very young (some would even describe them as little) children, go to ‘beg’ at prayer times, when the houses are empty of grown men, many of whom have gone to the mosques to observe the given prayer. This makes a person to suspect their real motive. If they are actually begging because of ‘hardship’, then why did they not remain in their various towns or even countries, since the ‘hardship’ is not limited to a particular place, if one might ask?

Many of those who claim to be beggars are not really Nigerians by birth. They came to this country in truck loads purposely to ‘beg’, as their home countries do not allow haphazard begging. But it appears to be fair game wherever one comes on these shores, hence the ‘scramble’ by our foreign neighbours to come to Nigeria and ‘beg’ or do any paying job without being choosy. Most of the water vendors and cart pushers in our midst are from the neighbouring countries too.

Anyway, this writer had a first hand experience of tricks employed by some so called beggars. A small GIRL of about SIX years of age came to ‘beg’ at 10.39 pm (ten thirty nine in the night) in his house in the state capital of a north western state. Since the entrance to the main 

house was already closed, there was no way to access it, even though the main door to the entire house was not closed yet.

As I opened the back door to my waiting room, I saw the girl who was begging, standing in front of the entrance. When I asked her what she was doing at that inappropriate hour for her to be out of the sight of her parents, she said her ‘mother’ was outside waiting for her. 

But when I went to talk to the mother, she was nowhere to be found (the woman had apparently heard when I was talking to her ‘daughter’). I then went back inside the house amazed and just told the girl to find her way back to where she came from. Truly, I did not want to be seen and accused of being with a little female kid at that ungodly time of the day.

It is hoped that people would be wise to the beggars around them or those who come to their houses to ‘beg’. Some of them might not be what they pretend to be. They just might be there to steal or spy on the occupants, for reporting to some bandits or general criminals, who are waiting for the information to attack.

It is also hoped that Alhaji Aliko Dangote would go ahead with his plan to build the steel plant in Nigeria, and that Alhaji Abdussamadu Rabi’u and other business people of great means would soon be in the steel business as well.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.