The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has removed no fewer than 607 beggars and mentally challenged persons from the streets of Abuja between July 2025 and now, as part of sustained efforts to improve security and restore order in the nation’s capital.
The Head of Enforcement at the FCT Social Development Secretariat (SDS), Mrs Ukachi Adebayo, disclosed this on Monday during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Adebayo said the exercise was carried out by the Operation Sweep Abuja Clean team, explaining that 583 of those evacuated were beggars, while 23 were mentally challenged individuals.
“Out of the 607 persons evacuated, 583 were beggars while 23 were mentally challenged individuals,” she said.
According to her, the affected persons were counselled, profiled and handed over to their respective state governments through liaison offices for onward rehabilitation.
“What we do when we apprehend the beggars and mentally challenged individuals is to counsel them so as to profile them. After that, we take them to their various liaison offices to be returned to their respective states, where they are expected to undergo rehabilitation,” Adebayo explained.
She, however, noted that many of those evacuated often find their way back to Abuja, stressing that the operation would remain continuous.
“The more you take them out, the more they resurface. Some of them were driven by insecurity in their states and ran to Abuja to take refuge, but we will continue to apprehend them and take them back,” she said.
Also speaking, the Acting Director of Social Welfare at the SDS, Mrs Gloria Onwuka, raised concerns over the increasing exploitation of children for street begging, describing it as an organised business.
“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,” Onwuka said.
She added that investigations revealed that some women caught begging with children were not their biological mothers.
“The families they are hiring these children from don’t even know that this is what their children are being used for. We have caught so many of them like that,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of the FCTA Command and Control Centre, Dr Peter Olumuji, said Operation Sweep was a joint security initiative involving all relevant security agencies and FCT secretariats, departments and agencies.
Olumuji explained that the operation was instituted by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, to rid Abuja of miscreants, street beggars, scavengers and other criminal elements.
“Beggars pose security threats and constitute a nuisance in the city. Some of them serve as informants to criminals,” he said.
He added that the presence of beggars and mentally challenged persons also undermines the aesthetics of the capital city, while exposing them to risks such as kidnapping and ritual crimes.
“Not only that, they also deface the beauty of the capital city, while some of them become victims of kidnapping for rituals and other negative purposes,” Olumuji said.
He stressed that the operation would continue to clamp down on beggars and other criminal elements wherever they resurfaced.
Recall that in October 2024, Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, publicly declared a war on street begging in Abuja, citing security and image concerns.
“Let me say clearly now, we have declared war on beggars because Abuja is returning to a beggars’ city,” Wike had said.
“It is embarrassing that people who come into Abuja, the first thing they see are just beggars on the road,” he added.
The minister further warned that some individuals disguising as beggars could be criminals, stressing that the crackdown was aimed at ensuring maximum security so residents could “sleep with their two eyes closed.”
