Beggars Protest Low Patronage In Oyo State
Roughly 250 beggars in Ibadan, on Thursday, April 1, came out to protest low patronage by members of the public after a recent rumor that they sell money gotten from people to ritualists.
Spokesperson for these beggars, Imam Abubakar Abdullahi, Serikin Hausawa of Hausawa Community, Oja’ba, Ibadan, stated that the rumor had caused deep hatred for his people.
According to Abdullahi, “The reports that some wealthy people are buying money from beggars, including the physically-challenged people, for money rituals is not true. As a result of the claim that some ritualists do buy money from these beggars, there has been public resentment against these innocent people.”
“What we know is that traders, hawkers and commercial drivers do come to these beggars who are mainly blind and lame people, to change money (get smaller denominations). We need to clear our names so that people will not be punishing us for offences we don’t know anything about.” he concluded.
