El-Rufai and burden of beggars

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai

The news caption, “Beggars threaten to sue el-Rufai over ban of street begging,” captured my attention recently.

And it came as a surprise, especially coming from a class seeking charity from people and government. Isn’t it government’s responsibility to set the direction for empowerment of citizens anymore? How then, therefore, does street begging empower people?

I admire idealism and, statesmen who are willing to take on social issues. Though I am not a fan of Mallam Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, Nigeria needs passionate people with the will to change the country and the country doesn’t need people on the streets begging as a matter of course.

Experts who specialise in measuring social impact point out that too many people begging on the streets of Nigeria taint the country’s image globally.

They assert further that the oft-repeated scenarios of street begging can be deduced by members of the international community that ours is a country that is backward and cannot solve internal challenges without help from outsiders.

It was Richard Nixon who said, and I believe it to be so that, “Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to see it like it is and to tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth and live with the truth. That is what we will do.”

I asked my friends in the Gulf states if Arabs beg. They said this happens only in poor countries (present-day Iraq but never under Saddam Hussien, Afghanistan etc.), and they do so (beg) only because they are very poor.

But why is our “Almajiri” model different in Nigeria and how come begging is rapidly becoming a culture?

In the Gulf Cooperation Countries Oman, Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, UAE, there are no beggars. The states keep this class in special homes and little ones amongst them are given up for adoption. But in Nigeria, the Northern elite are only interested in giving children nickels and dimes with no plans for adoption or grants for education.

A former US president, George Washington, in his address to the Congress in 1790 noted that, “There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”

In spite of democratic rule these many years, inequalities in the polity remain unresolved. The economy of the north is in a shambles, and its educational facilities are comatose, the delivery of instruction in the class is poor. How then is it possible to liberate people from a restricted vision of the mind?

What kind of philosophy does Nigerian democracy work with, and with what guiding principles should this democracy be practised for the benefit of all?

These beggarly antics are snatching social media headlines for the wrong reasons. It is time wealthy northerners began to launch charity foundations to rally support for homeless and extremely poor people in the north. It is a crying shame that these wealthy northerners do not bother to synchronise efforts with government and rid their society of this menace.

These individuals need to put their self-interest on the sidelines and focus on helping the needy. After all, leadership does not stop on the table of those in public offices only.

The goal is to empower youngsters to take action and free themselves from poverty, and like children elsewhere tackle local and global issues.