No fewer than 250 beggars on Thursday reportedly stormed the streets of Ibadan to protest low patronage in the ancient city.
This followed a recent rumour which went viral that beggars sell money they recieved from people to ritualists.
Speaking for the indigent beggars, the Serikin Hausawa of Hausawa Community, Oja’ba, Ibadan, Imam Abubakar Abdullahi said the rumor had created deep hatred for his people.
“The reports that some wealthy people are buying money from beggars, including the physically-challenged people, for money rituals is not true. As a result of the claim that some ritualists do buy money from these beggars, there has been public resentment against these innocent people,” Abdullahi said.
“What we know is that traders, hawkers and commercial drivers do come to these beggars who are mainly blind and lame people, to change money (get smaller denominations). We need to clear our names so that people will not be punishing us for offences we don’t know anything about.” he added.
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