Off The Streets: Inside Kwara’s Quiet War Against Begging 

At Offa Garage, the Post Office roundabout, Tanke and Unity Road, some of Ilorin’s busiest landmarks, a quiet operation has been unfolding for months.

Vans pull up. Officials step out carrying identification materials, registers and other equipment. They approach people who have made the roadside their regular place of survival, identify them and move them away from the streets.

By the time the exercise ends, some of the men and women who once sat by the roadside are no longer there. They have been taken for assessment, medical attention and counselling and, where possible, are eventually reunited with their families.

Behind these operations is the Rehabilitation Directorate of the Kwara State Ministry of Social Development, whose work has increasingly brought social welfare, public order and security concerns into the same conversation.

In an interview with this reporter, the director, Mr Ikupolati Jonathan Taiye, explained that the operation had grown beyond a conventional welfare intervention and increasingly assumed a security dimension.

“It is illegal to beg on the streets in this state,” Taiye said, explaining that the directorate’s objective was to make Kwara free of street begging through evacuation, rehabilitation and reintegration.

The state government maintains that its campaign against street begging is intended not only to address social welfare concerns but also to tackle security threats, protect vulnerable people and restore order in public spaces.

According to Taiye, the directorate has evacuated and sheltered at least 152 beggars and 60 homeless or mentally unstable individuals.

But removing people from the streets, he explained, is only the beginning of a process that involves identifying their circumstances, assessing their needs and determining how best to help them return to stable living conditions.

Those evacuated undergo medical checks, documentation and counselling, including psychiatric assessment where necessary. Officials then attempt to establish their identities, locate their relatives and return them to their families or communities.

Yet, during some of these operations, officials have encountered circumstances that complicate the conventional picture of street begging.

Taiye said personnel had recovered mobile phones, ATM cards, foreign currency and substantial amounts of cash from some people found begging or allegedly posing as destitute persons.

He also cited an operation at Igbaja in which a person suspected of operating as a spy while posing as a beggar was apprehended.

According to the director, intelligence gathered during the exercises has suggested that some people within or around groups of beggars may serve as informants or scouts for criminal networks.

He added that similar operations had led to the apprehension of suspects around certain locations.

These allegations have given the government’s campaign a security dimension, strengthening the argument that the exercise goes beyond environmental management or conventional social welfare.

However, the claims also raise questions about how authorities distinguish between people who may pose security threats and those whose presence on the streets reflects poverty, homelessness, mental illness or other vulnerabilities.

For residents who witness the operations, the immediate concern is the visible change in public spaces.

Mr Najeeb Dauda, an eyewitness who spoke about the exercises, said the presence of beggars had for years been a familiar feature of some of Ilorin’s major roads and commercial areas.

Dauda said the evacuation exercises had changed the appearance of some locations and reduced the number of people openly soliciting for money along the roads.

From the community’s perspective, however, he said the real measure of success would be whether those removed from the streets were properly rehabilitated and prevented from returning.

That distinction is important. Removing people from a roadside is one thing; keeping them away by addressing whatever brought them there in the first place is another.

Between Enforcement and Rehabilitation

Street begging is not merely discouraged in Kwara. The state has also moved to prosecute people who violate its restrictions.

The Ministry of Social Development has previously announced arrests, prosecutions and convictions of beggars and street urchins through a mobile court, with the government citing provisions of the state’s social development laws.

Taiye said some apprehended beggars had received sentences ranging from two to three months.

He added that when cash or ATM cards were recovered during evacuation, the items were documented and kept pending the completion of the sentence before being returned to their owners.

That aspect of the operation raises questions about due process, property rights and the treatment of people whose circumstances may be rooted in extreme poverty, homelessness or mental illness.

Barrister Haruna Ibn Mahmud, a legal practitioner, said enforcement of any prohibition on street begging must operate strictly within the framework of the applicable state law and the constitutional guarantees available to every citizen.

According to him, the existence of a law against street begging does not remove the obligation of authorities to observe due process. Arrests, prosecution, sentencing and the handling of personal property must be carried out in accordance with the law.

He also stressed the need for authorities to distinguish between lawful enforcement and arbitrary detention, particularly where vulnerable people or persons experiencing mental health challenges are involved.

On the handling of cash and ATM cards, Mahmud said proper documentation and accountability were essential, especially where such property was to be returned after an individual’s sentence.

The legal question, therefore, is not simply whether Kwara can regulate street begging. It is also whether the enforcement process adequately protects the rights of those being removed from the streets.

That balance will remain important as the programme expands.

For people who are not suspected of criminal activity but have fallen through the cracks of social and economic life, the ministry’s intervention extends beyond evacuation.

Taiye said the directorate provides food items, financial assistance and transport fare to help rehabilitated individuals return to their home states and communities, including Kaduna, Kano and communities across Yorubaland.

He recalled the case of a woman from outside Kwara who repeatedly appeared on the streets to beg. According to him, officials eventually traced her, brought her to Gaa Imam and provided financial and material support to help her begin again.

Not every intervention, however, has produced a permanent outcome.

Taiye acknowledged that some individuals had attempted to return to begging even after being reunited with their families.

The directorate, he said, continues to monitor such cases and intervene where necessary.

The experience illustrates one of the difficulties confronting rehabilitation programmes: removing a person from the streets does not automatically eliminate the economic, psychological or social pressures that may have brought them there.

RN Salihu Umar, a medical professional, said the condition of people found on the streets could not always be understood simply as a matter of choice or indiscipline.

He explained that some individuals might be dealing with mental health challenges, substance use problems, trauma, social isolation or other conditions requiring professional intervention.

For such people, he said, lasting improvement may depend on appropriate treatment, sustained support and a stable environment rather than removal from public spaces alone.

The Government’s Wider Response

Taiye said the Commissioner for Social Development, Hajia Mariam NnaFatima Imam, had been personally involved in the operations and had worked with relevant judicial authorities to strengthen the legal framework supporting the directorate’s activities.

He added that the commissioner had ensured that the directorate received the administrative backing required to carry out its work.

According to Taiye, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s support had extended to approving memoranda and providing the logistics and funding required for the programme.

These include equipment used during operations, as well as tools for related environmental and public sanitation activities.

The wider policy direction reflects the state government’s position that street begging should be addressed through a combination of enforcement, rehabilitation and social support.

Taiye also said the approach had attracted attention beyond Kwara, with some states reportedly observing aspects of the state’s model and beginning to adopt similar measures.

If the programme is to serve as a model for other states, however, its effectiveness will need to be measured not only by the number of people evacuated but also by the quality of rehabilitation, the durability of family reintegration and the protection of individual rights.

The Problem Beyond the Streets

Beneath the arrests, evacuations and rehabilitation exercises lies another problem the ministry says it is increasingly confronting: substance abuse.

Taiye linked some behavioural and mental health challenges affecting young people to smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and drug use.

Such problems, he said, could contribute to circumstances that push vulnerable people away from family and community structures and, eventually, onto the streets.

Umar also emphasised the need to treat substance abuse as a public health and social problem rather than relying solely on punishment.

Early intervention, he said, could prevent some vulnerable people from reaching the point where homelessness, mental illness and substance dependence become intertwined.

The ministry has responded with public awareness jingles in Yoruba, Hausa and English, urging residents to avoid substance abuse, discourage street begging and make use of available community and social support structures.

These efforts suggest an understanding that street begging cannot be considered in isolation from the wider social conditions that sustain it. Poverty, family breakdown, mental illness, substance dependence and the absence of adequate support systems can overlap, leaving some individuals with few options for survival.

Addressing those conditions requires more than periodic enforcement exercises. It demands coordination among social welfare authorities, healthcare professionals, families, community leaders and relevant public institutions.

Beyond Empty Streets

What emerges from the directorate’s work is a programme operating at the intersection of social welfare, law enforcement and public health.

The reported figures are significant. At least 152 beggars and 60 homeless or mentally unstable individuals have been evacuated and sheltered, according to the directorate.

The state has also prosecuted people for violating its restrictions on street begging, while maintaining that vulnerable individuals should be rehabilitated and reintegrated.

The security dimension makes the story more complicated.

The reported recovery of cash, ATM cards and mobile phones, alongside allegations that some people have used begging as a cover for intelligence gathering or criminal activity, has strengthened the government’s argument for a tougher approach.

The reported apprehension of a person suspected of posing as a beggar while conducting intelligence activities in Igbaja has further heightened those concerns. Such allegations, however, must be assessed on the strength of verifiable evidence rather than assumption or appearance.

There is another side to the story. For someone who has spent months or years on the street, evacuation is only the beginning. Without treatment, family support, economic assistance or a sustainable means of survival, the road back to the street can be short.

This is where Kwara’s intervention will ultimately be judged.

The challenge is not simply to make the streets empty. It is to ensure that the people taken from them have somewhere else to go, the support required to remain there and a realistic opportunity to rebuild their lives.

For the AbdulRazaq administration, the programme offers an opportunity to demonstrate that public order and social protection need not be competing priorities. The two can reinforce each other, provided enforcement is lawful and rehabilitation extends beyond temporary shelter.

And if Kwara intends its approach to become a model for other parts of Nigeria, the harder test may not be how efficiently it removes people from the roadside, but how effectively it restores them to ordinary life.

The lasting measure of success will not be the absence of beggars from Ilorin’s major roads, but the number of vulnerable people who no longer need to return to them to survive.