Beggars invade Cross River State, shut down major streets, roads

Large number of destitutes popularly referred to as Scolombo boys and girls have taken over major streets of Calabar, Cross River State capital.
Most of them ages ranging from 5-17 years, DAILY POST investigation reveals are from neighbouring states while others are non-Nigerians who from countries like Niger and other countries in crisis.
These people, our reporter gathered disrupt traffic by hanging on vehicles, begging for money. Interestingly, parents of these beggars sit under the trees and by roadsides monitoring their kids.

Investigations further reveals that these children have virtually taken over some public institutions, abandoned property, uncompleted buildings, refuse bins and dumped sites. The beggars look unkempt and hold their victims hostage until they are given money.
Sadly, anybody that refuses to give money will have his or her clothes torn as well as be threatened and insulted. These beggars in most cases appear violent. Another set of beggars, it was gathered are cripples who also invade the city, particularly traffic posts where vehicles stop to wait for instruction from traffic wardens.
The beggars are found along the stretch of Calabar Road, IBB, Mary Slessor, Watt Market and other places.

It would be recalled that some months back, Immigration Command in Cross River State repatriated several illegal immigrants but DAILY POST investigation shows that the number that have returned to the city is now more than the number that were repatriated.
Confirming the presence of these street beggars and their activities in the state, the commissioner for Sustainable Development and Social Welfare, Mr Oliver Orok told our correspondent that the ministry had had several meetings with Immigration and Hausa community with a view to getting these illegal immigrant out of the state, yet the influx was getting out of hand.
“We actually had several meeting with Immigration services in respect of Fulanis and all these people that came to the State through illegal ways. You discovered that some of them came in through legal process with document but some come in through illegal process. We had met with Saraki, Hausa Community in Bogo Biri and these beggars were taken out of the streets, some left on their own, some were repatriated by immigration”.

“All of a sudden, they are back again, we have written to the Immigration officially on the matter that this people are back to the street. How did they come? We don’t know. Normally, we have issueS of logistics earlier on when we trIED to repatriate them, our state governor assisted in making sure they were taken off the street. Now that we have noticed that they are back, we are also going to write to Immigration Services and make sure that they are off the street,” the Commissioner stated.
The Commissioner remarked further, “Our own duty is to make sure that we take out street children from the street, we keep them for a month, monitoring them, interview them and thereafter we repatriate them back to their different states.”
According to the commissioner, the state government has made it mandatory for parents of the street children to sign undertaken that if their kids are found in the street, government will not fail to prosecute them.
“Recently, we adopted a method whereby the parents must sign undertaken that, if their children are found on the street again, they will be prosecuted. Based on this, we have an ICT unit for image capturing of these children because we notice that when we send them back, after a while, they come back and some who are in the state are left by their parents to go out to source for money to feed the family,” he explained.
He maintained that the state government was working on that as well as giving financial assistance to some parents and making sure the ones who are mature have something to do with a view to reducing crime rates in the town.
“Last time, we rescued about 125 children and any child that is over 18 cannot be kept in our home, it is not our duty to take care of the adult but to take care of the children, street children, the vulnerable, the less privilege, handicap, but with these foreigners coming to the streets, we are synergising with Immigration to make sure that they are taken out of the street.”
DAILY POST discovered that most of the open defecation in streets are done by these destitute and our finding further come into the state in trucks that convey yams, onions, potatoes and other items to the State.