While it may appear to many as cruelty and callousness, the decision of the government to task everyone including beggars, it is never out of place to see begging as a professional occupation in the country today. The act of begging which has enriched a lot of people and keeps placing food on the table of a lot more who are assumed to be “less privileged”has been warmly embraced by many.

Gone are the days the act of begging was solely for the poor and people with great disabilities. Today, “refined begging” with resourceful equipment are being used in getting money. The alarming increase in the number of fully fledged able men engaging in the act of begging in end making ends meet is stupendous, and it leaves everyone, including the government in surprise of how proficient and profitable they have made the occupation.

Today, in our tertiary institutions, we find same faces iteratively visiting all classrooms on regular basis seeking for financial aid. Some are so advance they don’t bother talking to anyone, they simple drop their envelopes before you and walk away. They return to pick the monies you must have dropped in it and return the next day. These are men who have all it takes to be on the street making legit money.

On close observation of beggars at Ojo local government area of Lagos, one would notice that these men, although some are old, do nothing but wait for Nigerians to bring rice and money. Then, they return to their hideout at night to impregnate their wives, thereby populating the numbers of beggars on the street. If Lagos isn’t watchful, Ojo LGA may be thee home base of beggars in Nigeria in a decade from now.

One beggar somewhere in Ago Iwoye, Ogun state when admonished to start the sales of water with the lot she has earned through begging, she simply responded by asking “How much profit she would make selling water that she wouldn’t make double sitting by the road side with her daughter ”.

The abled men and women who extort innocent Nigerians of their hard earned money should be equally taxed as every other person. As a matter of fact, the future of the profession, begging, may witness the use of state-of-the-art equipment and
If those old women selling fruits, teenagers hawking water, wheelbarrow pusher and don’t evade taxes, abled men making money from begging shouldn’t evade taxation.


cc: lalasticlala