The Federal Capital Territory Administration has removed  607 beggars, including individuals with severe mental health conditions, from the streets of Abuja.

Ukachi Adebayo, head of enforcement at the FCT Social Development Secretariat, disclosed this in an interview in Abuja on Monday.

Ms Adebayo said the exercise was carried out  by the Operation Sweep Abuja Clean team. She said that out of the 607 evacuated, 583 were beggars, while 23 were mentally challenged individuals.

She added that the beggars and mentally challenged individuals had been counselled, profiled, and returned to their respective states in collaboration with state governments through their liaison offices.

“What we do when we apprehend the beggars and mentally challenged individuals is to counsel them to be able to profile them.

“After that, we take them to their various liaison offices to be returned to their respective states, where they are expected to undergo rehabilitation,” Ms Adebayo said.

Noting that the beggars and mentally challenged persons return to the streets after the evacuation, Ms Adebayo said that the operation was ongoing and would continue to take them off the streets of Abuja.

“The more you take them out, the more they resurface. Some of them were driven by insecurity in their state, and they ran to Abuja to take refuge, but we will continue to apprehend them and take them back,” added Ms Adebayo.

Additionally, Gloria Onwuka, acting director of social welfare, SDS, said that some of the children begging on the streets were brought in from other states by unidentified individuals to beg and hand over the proceeds to them.

Ms Onwuka added that some of the women who were caught with children, begging on their behalf, were not their biological children.

“Begging is now run like a business. People will go and hire people’s children from other states, put them in vehicles very early in the morning, come to Abuja, and start begging.

“The families they are hiring these children from don’t even know that this is what they are using their children to do. We have caught so many of them like that,” she said.

Peter Olumuji, secretary of the FCTA Command and Control Centre, explained that Operation Sweep was a joint security operation involving all relevant security agencies and FCT’s secretariats, departments, and agencies.

Mr Olumuji stated that the operation was instituted by FCT minister Nyesom Wike to sweep Abuja of miscreants, street beggars, scavengers, and other criminal elements.

He pointed out that beggars pose a security threat and constitute a nuisance in the city, adding that some of them serve as informants for criminals.

“Not only that, the beggars and mentally challenged individuals also deface the beauty of the capital city, while some of them become victims of kidnapping for rituals and other negative purposes,” Mr Olumuji said.

He said that the operation was ongoing and would continue to crack down on beggars, miscreants, and other criminal elements wherever they resurfaced.

Mr Wike had, in October 2024, declared war on beggars defacing Abuja city and posing a security risk. The minister explained that the move was necessary over concerns that Abuja was turning into a beggars’ city.

“Let me say clearly now: we have declared war on beggars because Abuja is returning to a beggar’s city. If you know you have a sister, you have a brother who is a beggar on the road, do something, because from next week, we will carry them; we will take them out of the city.

“It is embarrassing that people who come into Abuja, the first thing they see is just beggars on the road,” Mr Wike said.

Mr Wike pointed out that sometimes the supposed beggars may not be beggars but criminals pretending to be beggars.

“We will not allow that,” he said.

He explained that the move was to ensure maximum security so that residents could sleep with their two eyes closed.

(NAN)