*As the Blind Blame them of Stealing from Their Alms Collection
Hauwa’u has learnt to endure her body aches. Despite a long walk every day under the scorching sun, her young feet no longer get tired.
Every morning, 12-year-old Hauwau sets out at 6 am to earn the daily bread for her family. She treks a kilometre from her home in Koran Zaki, Gombe to Layin Sarkin Makafi, where visually impaired beggars convene to pick boys and girls who would lead them around the streets of Gombe while begging for alms. In return, the children are being paid for the long hours spent roaming the streets, leading their principals.
Hauwau, like many of the girls who spoke to WikkiTimes, returns home with her meagre earnings, which help feed her family.
Layin Sarkin Makafi
Kasuwar Mata, a community in Gombe local government, Layin Sarkin Makafi is home to about 100 visually impaired men and women. For decades now, most of them have survived on street begging, setting off early in the day with underage children as leads. However, with this daily routine comes exploitation, and sometimes molestation of the girl child, WikkiTimes can report.
Despite the danger associated with street begging, the business thrives in Gombe where the number of out-of-school children is estimated to be 700,000 as at 2021.
Parents of these children have admitted the danger to which their wards are exposed, they claimed they were helpless and could not but depend on their children for survival.
Sisters-in-Struggle
Hauwau Ibrahim has been in the business of street begging for 4 years now. She is the second child among eight children, with a jobless mother and an ailing father. The 14-year-old out-of-school girl told WikkiTimes what a typical day at her job looks like.
She often leaves home at dawn and returns at dusk.
“It is very tiring. Sometimes I leave home without eating and remain hungry for hours. My blind principal does not spend more than N100 to feed me and the food is barely enough. We trek for miles and sometimes it is for nothing because sometimes we don’t get alms from people,” she said.
Most times, she wakes up with body aches and sore feet but her mother persuades her to go regardless because that is the only way to get money to feed the next day. Her wages at the end of the day are determined by how much they earn from alms or what her blind principal is willing to pay, which is hardly more than N800, she told WikkiTimes.
“We are not being paid in percentage. The only thing that determines what we earn is what we get and the generosity of my blind principal.”
Leading her principal all day also means that she could not regularly attend school.
“I was enrolled in secondary school two years ago but I could only attend school no more than thrice a week,” she said.
Hauwau’s Mother, Adama Muhammad, said it took the family a year to save money for her daughter’s school enrollment fees and uniform, and yet she could only attend for three days in a week.
Hauwau’s unhappiness is not lost on her mother.
“I have to appeal to her to go beg for money sometimes. And when she complains of her sore eyes, I have to remind her that we don’t have anything to eat if she refuses to go.”
Adama has noticed her daughter’s infected eyes, reddened by the sun, but she seems helpless about it. “We used to take her to an eye doctor who prescribes drugs for her on a monthly basis, but after 3 months, her father said he could not afford it and now she is left to endure itches and stings,” she said.
Hauwau’s father, a former court worker, suffered paralysis a few years ago and has retired from work due to his ill health. Now, he earns a monthly pension of N10, 000 which is insufficient to feed his two wives and 8 children, let alone pay for his medication.
Hauwau’s neighbour and peer, Maryam Ibrahim, also shares the same plight. The 13-year-old is also out of school because her family cannot afford the tuition.
“I have no other dream than to go to school. But every other day, I trek to Layin Sarkin Makafi to lead blind men and earn something for my family. If I don’t go, my family would have to survive off debts to feed, then I will have to work harder to help clear the debts,” she said.
Maryam dreads the daily long walks with the blind men, especially on sunny days and sometimes she has to trek half the day on an empty stomach.
“I wish the government would intervene and provide free education for us and jobs for our parents,” she added.
Similarly, Fatima Muhammad has led blind men for 8 years now, she started against her will, because her parents thought she was “idle around the house.”
“They couldn’t afford to send me to secondary school since I completed my primary school, so they decided I lead blind men like my sister. But it was against my will at first, I just accepted reluctantly and got used to it.”
Fatima said she has lost her passion for schooling, and despite being enrolled last year, she chooses to go at the time she wishes.
“Leading blind men puts money on the table, but schooling doesn’t. Sometimes I wake up ready to go to school but change my mind, especially when my mother complains about not having enough money to cook the meal for the day. I would rather go and earn money and put a smile on her face than go to school,” she said.
On a good day, she earns up to N1500. But the 15-year-old is thinking of quitting next year because she is getting too old to lead the blind around the street.
“My younger siblings will take over,” she added with a sheepish smile.
Aishatu Muhammad is another teenager whose is dream is cut off by the circumstances of her birth. She started leading the blind when she was nine years old. Now she longed to return to school but for the poor condition of her family
“My family uses my daily earnings for feeding and pay off debts. I earn N500 a day. I trek from Arawa, where I live to Layin Sarkin Makafi every day at 6 am. It’s very far but I do that every day.”
If she ever gets a chance to go back to school, Aishatu said she aspires to be a Lawyer to correct social injustice.
The Horrors and Realities of Street Begging
When darkness begins to mark the end of the day, Hajara Dauda, mother to 13-year-old Umaimah, worries when her daughter does not return home from her job. But all she can do is pray for her daughter’s safe return as she walks up and down the streets.
“Having a daughter out there who is not home by dusk is worrisome. If at all they get missing or something bad happens to them, we don’t know where to start. Our children are not doing this job by choice. It is our duty to protect them, but we can’t. They have to roam the streets to get us something to eat,” she said.
Sometimes, Hauwau’s mother, Adama, would also trek down to Layin Sarkin Makafi to await her daughter’s return.
“Sometimes the blind men take longer time to return. Especially when they haven’t made enough money. But we get worried, especially for our female children.”
Molestation, Harassment of Girls Leading the visually impaired
The girl-leads sometimes experience molestation and harassment.
Fatima told of her experience: “I used to lead a blind man a few years back who was very emotional about his ex-girlfriend. During our long walks, he would speak to himself and sometimes even cry and when I tried to console him, he would react by slapping me multiple times.”
Fatima recalled that she had been slapped several times by that man on different occasions, and when she complained, he would slap her again.
Fatima did not mind the long-distance walks because she was used to it and the money earned from the gig kept her mother happy. But when they walked down isolated places, she became scared too.
“There was a day we were walking along Tumfure area on a lonely road and then one man waved at me to come over. I told my blind principal and he beckoned me to go. Upon reaching him, he asked me how much we make in a day from street begging and I told him N3,000, so he said I should follow him and that he would give me N5,000.
“I told my blind principal and he said I should follow him. I was scared, but since he told me to go, I had to. So, I left my principal by the roadside and followed the man through a narrow road.
“As we kept walking, the road was getting lonelier and I started getting nervous, yet this man insisted that I follow him,” she narrated. Fatima eventually became suspicious and suddenly took to her heels, narrowly escaping the man’s grab and they hurriedly left the place with her blind principal.
According to the girl, she had experienced similar incidents a number of times, and each time, her blind principal couldn’t protect her because he was vulnerable.
Speaking of her relationship with her blind principals in the past and present, she boasted that despite hearing of girls who were molested by their principals, no one dared touch her beyond the shoulders.
But Hauwau’s experience is different. The girl recounted how one of her blind principals would trail his fingers from her shoulders down to her neck and farther.
“As a general rule, the blind person’s fingertips should remain on his or her lead’s shoulder, but sometimes my principal’s fingers travelled further. He would trail his fingers to my chest and several times I would complain and he would turn deaf ears. When I tried to ward off his hands completely, he would grab my neck bone in a tight grip and hold onto the spot for the rest of the day.”
Subsequently, Hauwa’u started developing sores around the neck spot and that was when she stopped leading the man.
“When I told my mother about it, she only asked me to be patient and endure, then she later said I could stop leading him and find someone else.”
Once, Hauwau was also involved in an accident during her trip with a blind woman. “We were jammed by a motorist and my principal and I sustained bruises. They took us to a nearby pharmacy store and we were treated.”
Since then, she has grown scared of roads but has been helpless as even her blind principals depend on her to get them across the road.
Alms for Survival
But the blind principals have denied all allegations of exploitation levelled against them. Muhammad Musa, a blind beggar who also doubles as a local government worker in Gombe, said the difficult economy has pushed him to engage in occasional street begging despite being a government employee.
He couldn’t speak well of some of the children either because their relationship is transactional. He accused some of their assistants of dishonesty, saying that on several occasions, his leads had hidden or stolen his alms.
“Countless times, some of these children have stolen from me. It is easy for them since I am blind and they collect the alms, for instance, if you give them a N50 note, they will tell me it’s N10.”
“I remember one time when a girl was leading me. We were begging and one man gave her N1,000 note and when I asked her, she said it was N200 but fortunately for me, the man heard her and made her confess the truth right there and then. She was later punished by flogging by our leaders and we dismissed her,” he said.
He also complained about how some of the leads are reckless, leading them to walk into ditches when they miss their steps.
“I orient my leads, but some of these children are very stubborn. So instead of dealing with such difficult children, I simply dismiss them and look for another lead,” he added.
Muhammad Sani Yakubu lamented about how his colleagues get into a lot of trouble with some of the children, therefore, they had to devise means to punish them when they wronged them.
He said: “The punishment varies depending on the wrongdoing, sometimes we scold them, flog them or dismiss them.”
When confronted with issues of molestation, he denied having molested any leads but admitted that some of his girl leads turned out to be too reserved and restrained from physical touches. Narrating an encounter with a girl lead, he said the girl, after she had agreed to lead him, pre-prevented him from laying a hand on her shoulder and they argued for minutes until she succumbed.
“I asked her if she would prefer that I hold her hands but she said no. So, I took my time to explain to her that she has no choice and she can’t lead me without allowing my hands on her shoulder,” he narrated.
WikkiTimes contacted the Gombe state chapter of the National Association for The Blind (NAB). The chairman of the association, Abdullahi Muhammed, who spoke to our reporter, said the problems that emanate from street begging are a major concern for the association.
According to him, 95% of members of the NAB in Gombe come from less privileged families and most of them have no choice but to resort to street begging.
Also, he said that the prevalence of poverty among the visually impaired is not unconnected to the lack of access to education.
“The government used to give a monthly allowance and take some responsibilities of the special needs students. It used to keep some of them off the streets. But today, students have to pay at least N2,500 for PTA levy alone, it discourages them from schooling because they can’t afford it,” he said.
”Therefore, you will find some of the students on the streets, sometimes begging. So, if an educated person who can at least afford to be in school is forced to beg, what about those who are not even literate? ” he asked rhetorically.
Speaking of the children that lead the blind men, he said: “The same poverty that drives those blind men to street begging is the same poverty that is also driving those children; therefore, it is the responsibility of the government to come to their rescue.”
Lastly, the Chairman called on the Gombe state government to reinstate those allowances and make education affordable so that they can encourage the visually impaired to attend school and become equipped for the future.
WikkiTimes also spoke to a community leader in Layin Sarkin Makafi, Abdullahi Haruna. He confirmed that he is responsible for settling disputes and ensuring peace among the blind men and their leaders.
According to him, street begging has remained the means of survival for the visually impaired in Layin Makafi for many years due to unemployment and illiteracy. Seeking the services of children, he said, is a practice that has been accepted by both the parents of the children as well as community leaders.
He said, as far as street begging is concerned, a blind man cannot usher himself into the streets, therefore, he needs someone to guide him.
Speaking on issues of molestation, Haruna said that he had settled disputes between blind principals and leads in the past, but he has yet to come across any case of harassing or molesting the girls; he, however, admitted that this doesn’t mean such acts don’t take place.
“We do hear rumours sometimes, about girl-leads being molested. But we cannot act on rumours since it is not a case being presented to us. Those kinds of cases remain hushed amongst our people and they rarely talk about it. “
Haruna also confirmed that the community leaders resolve disputes without involving other constituted authorities like the Police.
“Most times, it is the children cheating the blind men or the blind men refusing to settle the leads of their daily wages. We settle these issues regularly without involving the Police,” he added.
A girl-child activist, Fadhila Nuruddeen Muhammad, condemned the exposure of girls in the act of street begging, mentioning poverty as one of the driving factors.
“Unfortunately for us in northern Nigeria, we have traditionalized street begging and some parents willingly give out their kids to those people because of money. This is child labour and the government needs to stand against it.
“The first thing is to create awareness. Let them understand the consequence of what they’re doing and proffer solutions for them and a means of living and enrol those children in schools so that they can discard such activities.”
Teachers, Pupils In Gombe Schools Suffer As Classroom, Toilet Projects Remain A Mirage
Similarly, Hannatu Sulaiman Abba, an activist for people with disabilities, also blamed the government for the prevalence of street begging, especially in Gombe.
Her words: “I blame the government. If the government can empower people with disabilities and look into their needs, these things will not happen. They will leave the streets, it’s not as if they are happy doing it. Those people are brilliant and there is ability in disability. You will be surprised at what they are capable of doing to contribute to our society.”
The activist also condemned society for stigmatising people with disabilities, which leads them to isolate themselves and feel useless.
“Some of our people think it is a curse to be disabled, so they stigmatise them, and in doing so, they accept that as their reality and give up being useful in any way,” she added.
Edited by Ajibola Amzat
This publication is produced with support from the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability Project (CMEDIA) funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
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