Pro-democracy and leading Civil Rights Advocacy Group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has cautioned the Lagos State legislature against criminalizing begging.

HURIWA said the Lagos legislature could only take such a step only if the state has wiped off poverty from the state.

The group which made the assertion in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Wednesday, argued that mass poverty was actually inflicted on the masses largely due to political corruption, bad governance and brazen theft of funds budgeted and released for the building of socio-economic infrastructures to better the costs of living and the living conditions of the citizens by state officials.

HURIWA recalled that the Lagos State House of Assembly says it is considering promulgating a law to curb street begging across the state.

The lawmakers at a plenary session on Tuesday argued that criminal elements who always disguise as beggars have taken over the streets of Lagos.

The Rights group, however, wants the Lagos State Assembly to tackle the root cause of begging which is mass poverty rather than chase shadows and engage in semantic gymnastics targeted at wiping off the poor from the face of Nigeria by forceful means which offends the fundamental human rights provisions guaranteed in chapter 4 of the Nigerian constitution.

“It will be fool-hardy and will inevitably be like using force to stop hungry and deprived citizens from wailing/crying or chasing after bread and butter through legitimate appeal for generosity from rich Nigerians, if the Lagos State legislature criminalizes begging so long as the same government has abysmally failed to fulfil the legal obligations of making living for the citizens much more seamless, less and complicated.

Onwubiko insisted that “the government must first of all, criminalize poverty by retrieving all the stolen Lagos State’s resources diverted by past and present public office holders, including a certain godfather, and then create the enabling environment for all who desire to work to find well-paid employment.”

HURIWA reminds the Lagos House of Assembly that section 7 of the constitution provides that “the House of Assembly of a state shall have power to make laws for peace, order and good government of the state.”

The association argued that making a law to forcefully send indigent citizens to their early graves by stopping them from begging to survive was tantamount to inflicting social conflict and unleashing disorder on a large scale given that majority of Nigerians numbering over 133 million households were multi-dimensionally poor. “The primary duty of government is the security and welfare of the People”, in accordance with section 14 (2) (B) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended) the group added.

HURIWA wants the Lagos State government, in partnership with Corporate bodies and charitable organizations, to set up massive skills acquisition centres, whereby genuine poor and unskilled citizens of Lagos and legal residents could be trained in life-saving skills and ways and means of providing economic empowerment to power them to establish small businesses.

“It is after that, those who opt for begging rather than accepting to be economically empowered, can be deemed to be undesirable elements that constitute social nuisance on the streets, and then legitimately expelled from the streets. “Lagos State is the richest state in Nigeria and rich states must not send the poor members of their community to their early graves, else, any policy purporting to deprive them of their livelihoods would be challenged because not every poor person can be silenced without grave repercussion and consequences and the law against begging, without actualizing the conditions precedent as aforementioned, is a threat to national security,” the group said.