Nigerians feign illnesses to survive

Abdul is a familiar sight at Ikeja, Lagos, where he often begs for alms.

The area is destination to a lot of beggars daily but Abdul’s situation is particularly touching as he crawls about on his chest and belly, sometimes rolling over and over along the busy road.

He is one of the 63 per cent of Nigerians who the World Bank says live in destitution on Nigeria’s major cities begging for alms, some with health challenges.

Investigation, however, shows that a lot of the street beggars who are ill wish to remain so in order to continue to evoke public sympathy.

For instance, it is unclear what ailment Abdul suffered from at birth which rendered his lower limbs useless. But whatever it was, Abdul is not keen on getting medical treatment for it.

“I don’t know what caused the problem but I’ve had it since I was born. I’m not sure I can be treated but that’s not really what I need. What I need is a wheelchair to help me move around. My brothers will push me around in the wheelchair,” he told our correspondent who had offered to help with medical treatment.

The current situation involves Abdul’s supposed brothers, identified as Ibrahim and Issa, taking turns to carry him on their backs when they need to move him to another place to solicit for alms. They often stand a few metres from Abdul, keeping watch as passers-by drop money in a black polythene bag provided for it. Once the bag is full, they empty it for fresh donations. They move Abdul to a different location once donations start to dwindle away in a particular place. Having a wheelchair would make the job easier for Ibrahim and Issa.

“I’m ready to be pushing him around,” Issa volunteered. Ibrahim and Issa are not formally employed as they told Saturday PUNCH that assisting Abdul is what they do. So at the end of the day, they get their share of the money donated by the public.

 “We came together from Plateau State and we have been assisting him in Lagos,” Ibrahim said.

A trader at the Computer Village, Ikeja, where  Abdul stays each morning, Festus Orji, estimated that Abdul makes a minimum of N3,000 daily.

“People often pity him when he crawls. At least one out of every five people that pass here gives him money, and some give as much as N200,” he said.

Also, Mrs. Adijat Kubura travels from Sagamu, Ogun State, to Lagos to beg for alms three days a week.

Kubura is partially blind and can hardly walk, but her neighbours assist her to the park, where she takes a bus to Lagos and finds her way to Ojodu-Berger, by the Lagos State Public Works Corporation Office. This is where Kubura has begged for a living for about a year.

Kubura has become a common sight on the walkway where she sits and sometimes alters the course of movement of some pedestrians who find her pitiable frame repulsive. Kubura’s sight is not pleasing.

Her bandaged left leg is twice as big as the other and her right arm is badly skewed. Kubura has not fully recovered from an auto accident she said she had two years ago along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. There is also a lump protruding from the lower part of her body, which she covers with her wrapper.

As for her poor eyesight though, Kubura blames it on diabolical causes.

“I broke my arm in the accident, but I couldn’t afford proper medical care, so I was taken to a traditional bone-setter, who did not do the job well. But I’m not using the money I make to treat myself; I only use the money to feed myself. What work can I do now at this age?” she asked.

Abdul and Kubura are just two of many people who roam the streets of Nigeria’s major cities, pleading for alms on the basis of their illnesses. Some of them are visibly ill and openly display all kinds of diseases and conditions; while some others go about with medical bills, all in a bid to attract public sympathy to themselves.

Taking advantage of public sympathy

Basically, the sight of ill beggars and those claiming to be ill has increasingly become common in many major cities.

Each Nigerian state and indeed city, will have its own story but Lagos is perhaps one of the biggest casualties in the country, due to its appeal as the country’s commercial nerve centre. Beggars from other states move to Lagos since its appeal means better hope for them.

A boy who could not be more than ten years old, but with a rare condition, is recently being spotted at Ikeja. The boy’s right hand is about three times as big as his other hand and he sometimes carries it on his head.

The boy declined to make any comments and ran off each time our correspondent asked him a question. Some residents said he spoke only Hausa and was also not willing to seek medical help.

Some health experts have confirmed that many of such beggars don’t want medical help since it would stop people from taking pity on their health situation.

A consultant family physician, Dr. Gbolahan Abideen, said he had heard of cases where some ill beggars were invited to hospitals for treatment only for them to reject such invitations.

“They always hang around hospitals where I’ve worked and there have been cases where they have been invited in for treatment but they blatantly refuse to be treated,” he said.

Investigation also shows that some of the beggars who claim to be ill actually feign illnesses, with some even going as far as deceiving people with the use of make-up. Saturday PUNCH learnt that some of the beggars get as much as N5,000 each daily, depending on how gory their genuine or fake illnesses look like.

Abideen said he had seen cases where people claimed to have burns only to discover after close observation that palm-oil and other materials were cunningly used as make-up.

“Some people may not know when they see these things but a trained eye would know. One way to know is that there is no way someone with a serious burn will sit in the sun the way they do; it is very painful,” he said.

“Some will even come to the hospital to say they are suffering from an illness that they do not have and when we give them notes to do tests, you see them out there using the notes to beg for money. You realise that all they needed in the first place was the note.”

A classical example which played out recently led to the sentence of two women to two months imprisonment each by a Family Court in Yaba Magistrate’s court for child trafficking and engaging underage children in begging for alms. The women, Amarachi Eke and Chioma Eze, were caught begging with two children, aged six and nine years, on Victoria Island, Lagos.

The children’s tummies and legs were plastered with ointment and wool to feign burns to attract public sympathy. But when a compassionate woman stopped and volunteered to assist one of the boys, Eze ordered him to run away. However when the boy was later apprehended by a police officer, it was discovered that the injuries were fake.

Similarly, a trader at the Computer Village, Ikeja, Ken Patrick, said last year, he witnessed the beating of a woman he had thought was suffering from cancer of the breast.

Patrick said the woman, who was in her 30s, had exposed one of her breasts, with an irritating substance that forced some people to part with their money.

But in the charade, someone who knew the woman from somewhere reportedly saw her and raised the alarm that she was fake. Therefore, she was held down and the substance on her breast was washed off, revealing a healthy breast.

“People then realised that she had mixed pap with palm oil to produce the substance she applied on her breast to make it look like she had cancer. Some of the onlookers beat her up and told her never to show up at the market again,” Patrick said.

Patrick also said he once witnessed another incident on the Lagos Island involving a beggar who pretended to have a bad leg, meanwhile, he always had it buried in the sand before people arrived at the market.

But the beggar’s trick was exposed one day when a truck whose driver had lost control, headed towards his way.

“The beggar ran that day with his two legs and we later realised that he had dug the ground where he would keep one of his legs,” Patrick said humorously.

Some experts have described people who deceive the members of the public into giving them doles with claims of suffering from some sort of illness as lazy and mentally unstable.

Another resident, Victor Omoniyegha, also said he had seen all kinds of cases and had been irritated by many.

“All kinds of people come here to beg for money, so I’ve seen all kinds of cases. I’ve seen burnt legs, tumours, goitre, cancer cases and even people showing pictures of private parts as where the problem is. Mostly, I’m irritated and sometimes have to close my eyes to give out money. We see people who don’t have any medical challenge too. They come everyday to beg and use the same ailment as excuse,” Omoniyegha said.

For example, Omoniyegha said he often saw a man who was fond of crying that he would die if he did not get financial assistance of N20,000 for a crucial operation. But the man is still alive, according to Omoniyegha, after telling same story many times.

“It’s always the same story he tells people, traders and bus passengers, so I’ve stopped giving him money,” he said.

A sociologist, Michael Ashibogwu, said, “A man who just wakes up to go and beg is not psychologically okay.”

“It’s not only those who walk the streets naked that are mentally unstable. There are people who are well-dressed but have made themselves become economically lazy. Someone goes to people and says he needs money for hospital bills and because some people have fallen prey to such tricks, it deprives those who have genuine challenges to get help,” he added.

However, others have said that the situation highlights the increasing difficulty for Nigerians to survive.

The National President, Nigerian Medical Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, said the situation showed that “more and more Nigerians are finding it hard to make ends meet.”

He said, “The economic situation of the country has affected a lot of homes and a lot of people are increasingly getting under in terms of the percentage of Nigerians living below the poverty threshold.

“I’m sure the situation may even be worse than 70 per cent today and unfortunately, people are driven to activities such as this. Some are forced to hit the streets to beg for alms because they are unable to get employment and get things to do to run their families.”

Also speaking on the issue, a human rights lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, described the situation as a function of government failure.

He said, “If those people are gainfully employed, they won’t be on the streets from morning to night pretending to be ill. It’s also a reflection that there is unemployment in our society and that there is so much poverty in this country.

“So when you see an able-bodied man who has no job to do and has to go about deceiving people that he’s ill, it reflects that there are fundamental problems in the country.”

Interestingly, a lot of the beggars are said to afford  a lifestyle that some of their benevolent givers only get to dream about. Some of the beggars are even reputed to have houses and cars bought from the money gifts and donations.

At the CMS Park and Oke-Ira area, both in Ogba, Lagos, a beggar identified as Abbay, is popular in most of the bars around the area. Abbay, who is said to be mentally challenged and also blind in one eye, rejects denominations lower than N50 note from givers.

But by evenings, Abbay, who is said to be around 50 years old, is often sighted in local bars drinking beer.

A bar attendant, who identified herself as Gloria, said Abbay sometimes gets drunk after taking up to four bottles of beer. Gloria also said that Abbay used to visit a brothel in the area called Aimasiko, before it was closed down.

“I don’t know if he still visits a brothel but he used to visit Aimasiko before the place was closed down. I believe he still visits brothels till today, but I don’t know which,” she said.

“When Abbay comes, we don’t give him cup so he drinks from the bottle. He will look at you before he begs for money. If he sees five people standing, he chooses the one who appears rich among them and begs him for money. If you give him N20, he will reject it and ask for N50 or N100,” she said.

However, there are beggars with illnesses who geniunely desire medical treatment.

An example is the case of a mother of a set of twin daughters, who used to beg for money at the CMS Park, Ogba, to get medical treatment for one of her daughters who had a tumour in her ear.

Residents said the woman brought the baby back to the park after an operation to remove the tumour.

“She brought the baby here after the first operation to remove the tumour. We all knew when her baby’s ear was very big and she pleaded that she needed money to treat the girl. After she brought the girl, people were encouraged to give her money to go ahead with the second operation for the girl,” a commercial bus driver at the park, who identified himself as Edosa, said.

Similarly, Ismaila Ajadi, 50, trained as a plumber and was practising until he fell ill and lost his sight eight years ago. His aged mother and brother then took up the responsibility of taking care of him. But shortly after, Ajadi lost his mother and in 2012, he lost his brother too.

Ajadi begs for alms on the pedestrian bridge at Ikeja-Along  on  the  Lagos-Abeokuta  Expressway three times a week. He is often supported by his neighbour, Bose Bakare, who assists him to collect donations.

Following his predicament, Ajadi’s wife left him with their 12-year-old daughter. He, however, promised to stop pleading for alms once he could afford an operation to restore his sight.

“All I needed initially was about N100,000 but I couldn’t get it on time till my sight deteriorated further. When I had problem, my wife ran away with my child and it was my mother and my brother that took care of me. They are both dead now, so I have no support,” Ajadi said, in tears.

“I finished secondary school and I trained as a plumber, so I’m not a lazy man. For now, I’m unable to treat myself because I eat with what I get and pay other bills too. If I can get one of my eyes to see, I will find something to do.”

Ajadi said he makes an average of N1000 daily out of which he shares with Bakare.

Bakare is mentally unstable, but has been Ajadi’s eyes in spite of her state. Her mother had asked her to accompany Ajadi on his outings, suggesting that it would be mutually beneficial to both of them. Bakare’s mother and Ajadi’s late mother were best friends.

“I help him (Ajadi) to collect money that people give us and we share whatever we get at the end of the day. I don’t have any job, so my mother said I should be going out with him,” she said incoherently.

Enabulele  said the inability of many Nigerians to afford quality health care was responsible for this ugly trend. He speculated that about 70 per cent of Nigerians would fall under the category.

He said, “We have about 70 per cent of Nigerians living on less than a dollar a day, which is like N160 and an antimalarial drug like Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy, for instance, costs about N1000. The person still has to spend on food, water and other things, so that tells us that about 70 per cent of Nigerians cannot afford access to health care at that rate.”

Universal Health Coverage

Meanwhile, health experts have identified a more aggressive universal health coverage as key to solving the problem.

Enabulele said,”Nigerians must be able to access a minimum package of health care on the basis of need and not affordability. Nigeria has not been able to drive a high percentage of citizens in terms of health care access. These tumours and diseases we see may just have started very innocuously from a small to a very big monstrous problem.

“At those stages, you need less resources but because these guys do not even have the minimal resources, they are not able to get care until it becomes very debilitating and then they now start walking the streets, maybe after being advised by people. Sometimes you see them on TV screens appealing for alms.”

Also, the National President, Healthcare Providers Association of Nigeria, Dr. Adenike Olaniba, said only four per cent of Nigerians have been covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme.

She, however, advised that states should be “encouraged to develop their own format of health insurance.”

“NHIS should be the policy makers and the regulator of health insurance in Nigeria but they should not be implementing health insurance. They should just set the policy and regulate the system so every state can now imbibe the policy or adapt the policy to the situations in their different states.

“That way, we believe many Nigerians will be covered. NHIS has a mandate to give qualitative health care at affordable costs to all Nigerians by the year 2015. But here we are in  2014, only four per cent of the population has been covered,” she said.

But the opinion of the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Government on Youths, Sports and Social Development, Dr. Enitan Badru, remains that even “when we take such to the hospital, they escape and go back to the streets.”

“Some people detest looking at them and are forced to part with money so they can go,” he added.

Aturu, however, urged the public not to be irritated by the sights of such individuals, saying that they are products of bad governance.

He said, “Those who are irritated by all these should go and fight government and get them to do something about it. Someone who is dying has to go somewhere to survive. We have cases of government giving money to well known artistes in Nigeria who are ill, why don’t they show concern to those people on the street?

“Anybody who is irritated is just displaying arrogance and stupidity, the source of the problem is that government has failed. It’s a strategy to cope and survive, so people should be irritated by the government because they have failed in their responsibility. So if you can’t feed them, treat them or give them jobs, then you can’t drive them away from getting support from good Nigerians.”