The Senate yesterday urged the Federal Government to formulate a policy to integrate Almajiris into the educational system to discourage them from street begging. This followed a motion by Senator Sankara Abdullahi and 26 other senators on the menace of street begging and need to rehabilitate street beggars. Abdullahi said begging in Nigeria appears to be intractable and overwhelming as beggars are now found everywhere .

He said beggars in recent times appeared to be a new trend of beggars popularly known as corporate beggars. According to him, street begging does not only affect geographical and social structure of urban areas, it also portrays the country in a bad image to tourist and foreign investors. He said street begging, had become a worrisome socio- economic challenge in addition to been a serious menace and liability on the Nigeria populace. He said the phenomenon takes a heavy toll on the lives of teenagers, who engage in the act and and are therefore are out of school. Senators, who spoke on the motion described street begging as a major challenge. The senate therefore called on the federal government to set up vocational training centres to provide beggars with alternative means of livelihood thereby making useful to the society. (NAN)

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