A beggars tale in Lagos
2003-05-16 11:42
Lagos - In the teeming streets of Lagos, Africa's most populous city, even the beggars have to make an effort to promote their business and stand out from the crowd.
Take the example of Yinka Aberuagba, a plausible 29-year-old with a smart suit, an elegant briefcase and a neat line in patter. Every day he plies his trade at a series of Lagos bus stops.
"I am a graduate in economics. I have just been invited for a job interview by an oil company but I do not have transport money to get me to the venue of the interview, can you help?," he asks.
When challenged on his story, Aberuagba admits that he's simply trying to raise money to feed his family. His parents are elderly and he is the eldest of nine children.
Compared to the more down-at-heel beggars who swarm busy road junctions in the city, Aberuagba cuts a stylish figure, but his enterprising brand of pan-handling is not unique.
"This category of itinerant beggars are called 'academic or new millennium beggars'," said Lagos sociologist Bayo Soyinka, who thinks he has identified a trend.
"Self-preservation is the first law of nature. This class of people are using their survival instincts to get along," he said.
Not all beggars are as dishonest as the young "economics graduate", some have set themselves useful tasks in the hope of attracting attention to their plight.
Ibrahim Musa, 45, is a Ghanaian who has been crippled by polio. For ten years he has based himself on a pedestrian bridge over the busy Ijesatedo bus stop in the Surulere district of the city.
Despite his plight, his bright white smile flashes out from his handsome, ebony features at passers-by. He waves cheerily and sweeps the bridge clean, day after sweltering tropical day.
In exchange, passers-by drop him a few naira notes, and Musa makes more than an average Nigerian university graduate earns at his or her first job.
"I make at least two thousand naira (about R124) daily and this takes care of my feeding and my other needs, including payment to the car that brings me here and back every day," he said.
Death-defying performances
Other, more desperate, beggars resort to death-defying performances to attract attention. On the busy Marina highway crippled polio victims dodge traffic on skateboards.
Accidents are common, but so are the generous souls who drop a few naira as they pass by.
"We are not ashamed since we survive on this. Begging is much better than stealing or robbery," said Ropo Adebayo, who dropped out of school eight years ago when polio stopped him walking.
But if some beggars are only a danger to themselves, others take their quest for attention to more dubious extremes.
Two women were arrested in Lagos last year for "borrowing" children from a creche, dressing them up as twins and taking them into the streets to support their begging act.
In parts of Nigeria's southwest, Yoruba tradition dictates that mothers of twins must dance with them and beg for alms in public places to ensure their survival.
Despite the lengths they go to to improve their routines, however, Lagos' beggars are not universally approved of.
Authorities have in the past tried to clear the streets before major sporting events, and now, with the introduction of a national ID card, Nigeria hopes to clamp down on immigrants.
Many of those attracted to Lagos - where the vast riches of the oil industry offer a faint hope of advancement to the region's impoverished masses - are from Niger, Chad and Sudan.
Some fear that another mass expulsion, to follow that of tens of thousands of Ghanaians in 1983, could be in the offing. For now, Lagos's "new millennium beggars" are still polishing their act.
- Sapa-AFP
- SAPA