Destitution , homelessness and begging for alms have over the years been the lot of millions of Nigerians.
Indeed, this situation is as a result of the bad governance by successive administrations in the country from independence in 1960.
Sadly, the policies of government, presently, does not seem to be favorable to Nigerians in this category, who are extremely financially incapacitated to reverse their status for good. Rather government officials in connivance with law enforcement agents and various shades of criminals continue to conspire to dispossess house owners of their landed properties all over the country.
In this interview, the Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam, Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke opines that several years of bad governance by successive administrations in Nigeria has resulted in destitution, homelessness and begging for alms by Nigerians. Excerpts :
Today, Destitution , homelessness and begging for alms is now the lot of millions of Nigerians, why is this so ?
The issue of the continued rise in the number of Nigerians who fall in the category of those in the poor conditions of living bracket which has resulted in destitution, homelessness and begging for alms, is a product of long term bad governance and several years of anti-people policies.
Paradoxically, Nigeria has been rated to be among the bottom 10 in terms of infrastructure, good feeding and human development index, with almost 98 per cent of our people living in abject poverty conditions.
The issue of begging for alms, has for long been culturally endemic in the North of Nigeria, this is as a result of various factors such as the marriage system, whereby wives are married through sharia with full fledged status of the respect attached to the matrimonial home. Besides this, the men keep concubines who are women of easy virtue, most especially from neighboring countries.
Children from such marriages are not necessarily catered for, they live at the mercy of the Almajiri system of education.
Equally, the nomadic life is more of a caravan voyage that does not allow most of their children to get western education. And the kind of Islamic and Arabic education they may possess, may not have any relevance to the system’s civility and attributes of communal efforts towards community and national services. Grown up children, already in the state of adolescence and adulthood may in future constitute societal menace and may become pawns in the hands of the elite and politicians for diabolical reasons.
The youth are easy and ready made tools to disrupt government activities and the peace of the system, as they may be hired by the opposition or enemies of the state to perpetrate evil acts for the purpose of survival as an alternative to begging for a living.
The Yorubas equally emulated this bad culture, contrary to the cultural practices of their existence that is anchored on the platform of core values of integrity, hard work and dignity of labor.
Unfortunately, those who beg for a living hide under the benevolence of God on the principle of Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Self, as well as the advocated policy of charity or philanthropy by those who may have.
But on a wrong note, marabouts and ritualists set their clients to source for the favor of God through giving alms to beggars, contrary to the divine and global concept of empathy for empowerment of the needy rather than sympathy through tokens that cannot sustain them for the day’s breakfast and launch.
These are fundamental issues and challenges which government need to address up to the grassroots level, through poverty alleviation and eradication programs.
On homelessness, the National Party of Nigeria Government of 1979/83, promised housing for all by the year 2000, unfortunately this campaign promise remained a mirage in the minds of the people.
A recent survey in the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), on the issue of homelessness, discovered that Nigerians build houses that they do not need, most especially in the urban centers.
Most of these gigantic buildings lay fallow without anybody living in them, the buildings are abandoned with deplorable signs of crack and dilapidation.
Cost of each of such could build moderate structures in villages and state lite towns for most people who are homeless to be taken care of.
The salaries of workers cannot even afford to rent such complex structures in the urban centers where their places of work are located.
The affordable ones are decrepit to the extent that they are not all that habitable for civil servants and also such buildings are several kilometers away from their places of work.
If there are means of transportation, it is on the high side, that workers spend almost all of their salaries on transport. This is the situation in several urban centers in Nigeria.
How do we then manage to overcome poverty in the face of the poor structure and policies on ground ? The structure on ground suggests an attractive factor for corruption for the civil servants, who deserve to have at least minimum comfort.
The factor of the breakdown of the agents of socialization in the society has affected largely the fabric of good parenting and home cohesion, resulting in several children dropping out of schools, after which they become night marauders who settle to sleep in market places and under bridges. The implication of this, is a damage to the peaceful system and breakdown in security.
The government through the National Orientation Agency(NOA) and good policies must sensitize the members of the public on the need for core values in society to be restored, to be able to have a conducive environment for planning to correct all the aberrations that has bastardized so many values in the land.
On the problem of destitution, political instability, military incursion, impunity in the land, kleptocracy y in democracy the endemic corruption fighting everyone of us through the elite, have badly effected our psyche as Nigerians and our economy to the detriment of of the nation’s development.
Today, there is no justice, we are still grappling with the challenge of inequality, but especially in the aspect of gender equality access.
Equity in the national wealth distribution is a mirage that has made us to plunge into a state of insecurity, marginalization and discord.
Nigeria is yet to conform with the United Nation’s charges for all nations on the issue of sustainable development and neither do we realize that corrupt enrichment is a negation to the Fundamental Human Rights to all good things of life.
How many Nigerians benefit from government’s activities as regards the provision of basic amenities, which to many is non-existent and the establishment of infrastructure which ought to turn around the lives of peasants, rather than only the few that rule us.
Destitution is a dividend of Nigeria’s democracy created by bad governance, due to the rulers’ insensitivity to the rising profile of poverty indices in Nigeria with probably an arithmetic progression of 15 per cent in 1960, 28.8 per cent in 1983, 54 per cent in 1990, 42 per cent in 1993, 63 per cent in 1996 and 70 per cent in 1999.
If successive governments had been sensitive enough, they ought to have worked on this by strengthening the purchasing power of the Naira through increasing index, diversification of the economy and eradication of impunity as well as corruption to improve the quality of lives of Nigerians and eradicate destitution through zeroing on unemployment, restoration of the dignity of labor, culture of hard work and high productivity that could have prevented the brain drain syndrome of our professionals as well as preventing our youth from embarking on their quest for greener pastures, which most of the times end up in suicide missions for them.
Government in Nigeria must say no to destitution, homelessness and the culture of begging for alms.
Destitution, Homelessness, Beggars, Nigeria,
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