Suicide Prevention, Drug Abuse, Destitution, Begging: Urgent Need For Control Policy

THE outcome of the trainability as­sessment in the study showed that many beggars and the destitute are enthusiastic about being trained, and are focused on achieving goals, innovative, pos­sess potentials to solve problems creatively and most importantly want to live healthy lives. With such abilities, beggars and the destitute when trained, can use their abili­ties in making meaningful contributing to economic development of the society and can live healthy lives and contribute to nation building. Beggars and the destitute can be equipped with vocational skills like shoe cobbling, soap making, movie artistry, music artistry, fine art, phone repairers and so on. One of the most important economic psychosocial needs of the beggars and the destitute interviewed in their study was learning a trade. Meaningful engagement in learned trade is among the critical pre­dictors of good and healthy living and are germane to human existence and is neces­sary for beggars who were observed to have suffered abuse neglect and abandonment in society.

To give hope to beggars and destitute persons in Nigeria, successive governments may have initiated and implemented dif­ferent programmes but such programmes seemed unsustainable, because of a lack of will to take the destitutes out the streets by the government. For instance, in 2014, the federal government of Nigeria inaugurated 19 members task force charged with get­ting beggars and destitute persons off the federal capital territory streets. Such action led to the arrest and detention of many beggars, destitute persons and other indi­viduals/groups described as environmental sanitation defaulters. Also in 2014, the federal government of Nigeria inaugurated 64 completed ‘almajiri’ schools with the aim of sending beggars and destitute persons back to school. The same report states that three years after the inauguration, many of the almajiri students abandoned the school and went back to street begging. This clearly suggests the need for development of public policy on vocational rehabilitation of beg­gars and the destitute. The policy implica­tion of this is that different rehabilitation and control measures should be put in place for different categories of beggars, depend­ing on the nature of predicament of each. For example, while poverty reduction strategies may be appropriate for most able-bodied, occasional beggars, functional and effective rehabilitation and healthcare services may be appropriate for disabled ones.

Such a policy is very important; and among the very critical issues the same policy must take into consideration is the implementation of strategies (such as vo­cational training) that will remove beggars and the destitute from the streets and public places. The policy must contain implemen­tation strategies that will reverse the dam­age already done to the health including the conscience and psychology of the beggars and the destitute and restore their belief in the dignity of labour. Through vocational guidance, individuals are given universal attention in understanding the meaning of work in human life; including survival trends in the career world and how to take care of their health.

The majority of these beggars and desti­tute are visibly idle and this further accentu­ates the adverse life events faced by them. For this, they need to be engaged in some meaningful ventures that will keep their minds active and productive. By so doing, major streets, motor parks and other public places could be rid of beggars and the desti­tute who can as well generate some income to support themselves and perhaps others.

Beggars and destitute persons, it must be noted, flock to cities every day hoping to find greener pastures. Thus, like every other per­son, they have no intention of leaving once they hit their gold mine. Even when they are arrested by some authorities and deported back to their communities of origin, they still manage to return. Therefore, in view of the foregoing, a public policy on their rehabilitation is an indispensable require­ment to control the menace of begging and destitution in Nigeria. The need to develop a policy that will require the provision of rehabilitation centers in all the local govern­ment areas of the federation cannot be over emphasized. These rehabilitation centres should also be equipped with vocational skill acquisition programmes for effective reintegration of addicts, depressed patients or destitute and beggars back into society.