By Stanley Onyekwere
In continuation of its resolve to rid the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of street beggars, traders, scavengers and one-chance syndicate, the Operation Sweep Abuja Clean team has succeeded in evacuating a total of 210 persons including children from under bridges and other public places in the nation’s capital city.
Also, the team succeeded in evacuating an unspecified number of scavengers, who are popularly known as ‘baba-bolas’ ,caught roaming the streets, suspected to be involved in nefarious activities in the city.
Making this disclosure yesterday, Acting Director, Social Welfare, Social Department Secretariat (SDS), Mrs. Gloria Onwuka, revealed that a breakdown of those evacuated shows that there 58 women, 72 children and 80 men.
Onwuka, who spoke while briefing newsmen on the fourth day of the raid exercise, explained the beggars were caught in the act, as all of them were sitting down in one place waiting for alms from people, when they were apprehend them.
According to her, those evacuated so far were taken to the FCT Rehabilitation Centre in Bwari, where they will be profiled and returned back to their identified states of origins.
She noted that as long as they keep off the streets, then the team too will go and rest, as the Operation Sweep Abuja Clean a continuous process.
Furthermore, the director explained that due to outcry over nuisance and criminal activities, the FCT Minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike had directed officials of the department to step up arrest of destitute persons.
Onwuka said: “We have apprehended and evacuated 80 men since the commencement of the exercise, the women are 58 while the children are 72 in number. The exercise will continue untill Abuja streets are free of beggars.
“Every day you receive complaints about one thing or the other, One -chance, kidnapping, all manner of evil things in FCT. So, the minister directed us to do away with all those things.
“Most of the beggars go even to the extent of hiring people’s children to come on the road and be begging. And there are families where they are hiring these children, we don’t even know that this is what they are using their children to do.
“They have taken it as a business. They will now go and hire people from other states, put them in vehicle, very early in the morning, they will come in Abuja and start begging. By evening or in the nighttime, they will disappear.
“There is a woman we caught, she now said that she has cancer at the breast. So by the time they loosen the bandage, there was no single wound at her breast.
“The one chance issue, there is one that our officers, our people, picked at night by 2am. He was carrying a machete with POS and different bank ATMs .
“The time they pick anybody, they will now ask you, which one is your bank? They will give you the card of your own bank, you press,If you fail, they use that machete and do away with you”.
Similarly, commenting on the security implication of nefarious activities in the city, the Director FCTA Security Services Department, Adamu Gwary said those apprehended were constituting degrees of crime in the territory.
Gwary represented by Dr. Peter Olumuji, said activities of the beggars was a threat to security of the residents.
He said, “We want to believe that most of the people apprehended, they have constituted degrees of crime and other things in the nation’s capital.
“The security concern of most of these nuisances within the FCT have become a source of great worry to the residents.
“And the Minister has given that directive to the Commission of Police and all other relevant agencies to ensure that the FCT is rid the capital city of all these security threats.
“The operation has covered so far, the city center, Kubwa, Gwarimpa, Asokoro, Garki, Wuse and the rest. And the operation is expanding, because the minister’s concern is that every nook and cranny of the fct that has any form of insecurity must be covered by this special joint task team”, Gwary said.
