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I left
the place with heavy heart and was also tired because the big luggage I carried
was a burden. No sooner had I made a slight move than someone in a ragged short
sleeve and torn jean at a close distance waved that I should wait. I thought he
was a beggar or one of the agbero
boys who might want to give a clue on my lost book. He appeared empathic, thin
and hunger-ridden like someone just released from the prison looking for
assistance. I went back to see if I could find something for him, after all the
area is the fortress for the beggars. I could remember my first day at the area
together with my brother. On getting to the bridge down to the next road some
Arabian young lads came to me, holding my cloth and begging to give them money.
I, a good Samaritan could not hesitate to give them one hundred naira left with
me on that previous day. I pitied those innocent young urchins- their future
and safety from the gnashing teeth of sexual abuse by the motor park boys.
As we
walked down a little bit, two old women –one of them deformed- had started
praying and begging us for alms but I was cash-crunched. So I needed to snub
them after casting sympathy on these poverty-ridden women whom the economic
hardship and petrifying dearth had turned to mendicants across the street.
A brother whom we were going did not care as if he knew them but however
warned me to be careful because men of the gangland did make use of begging
opportunity to perpetrate their evil.
