The Operation Sweep Abuja team has made a shocking discovery as it commenced enforcement in the nation’s capital.
NATIONAL POST reports that in the first days of the operation, 210 miscreants, street beggars, traders, scavengers and other criminal elements were apprehended by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA.
Most shocking of the arrests made was a woman known to be claiming to have been affected with breast cancer, and goes around different areas of Abuja.
According to the Acting Director of Social Welfare, Social Department Secretariat of FCTA, Mrs Gloria Onwuka, upon a clear check, it was discovered that the woman was hale and hearty.
“There is a woman we caught who claimed she has cancer of the breast, but when we loosened the bandage, there was no single wound on her breast,” Onwuka said.
Meanwhile, she confirmed that the 210 beggars, 80 men, 58 women and 72 children, have been camped at a rehabilitation centre in Bwari.
She disclosed that some unidentified individuals imported the children from Kano, Katsina, and other states into Abuja to beg and handover the proceeds to them.
Onwuka, however, disclosed that after being profiled, the children would be deported to where they came from.
“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.
“Also, some of the beggars will even tie a bandage on their legs claiming injuries but it’s all lies,” she stated.
NATIONAL POST reports that FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, recently gave a marching order that the nation’s capital should be rid of miscreants.