FCTA removes 607 beggars, mentally challenged persons from Abuja streets
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) says it has removed 607 beggars and mentally challenged persons from the streets of Abuja between July 2025 and January 2026.
The disclosure was made by Ukachi Adebayo, head of enforcement at the FCT Social Development Secretariat (SDS), during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
Adebayo said the exercise was carried out by the Operation Sweep Abuja Clean team, a task force set up to rid the capital of street begging and other social vices.
She explained that “out of the 607 persons evacuated, 583 were beggars while 23 were mentally challenged individuals.”
According to her, those apprehended were not simply removed from the streets but were processed through a rehabilitation pathway involving counselling and profiling before being handed over to state governments.
“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,” she said.
Adebayo, however, acknowledged that many of those evacuated often find their way back to the streets, noting that the operation remains ongoing.
“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 added.
Similarly, Gloria Onwuka, acting director of social welfare at the SDS, raised concerns about the growing exploitation of children in street begging.
Onwuka said investigations revealed that some children begging on Abuja streets were brought in from other states by unidentified individuals, while some women caught begging with children were not their biological mothers.
“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.
“The families they are hiring these children from don’t even know that this is what their children are being used for.”
Also speaking, Peter Olumuji, secretary of the FCTA Command and Control Centre, said Operation Sweep is a joint security exercise involving multiple agencies and FCT departments.
Olumuji said the operation was initiated by Nyesom Wike, minister of the FCT, to remove miscreants, street beggars, scavengers, and criminal elements from Abuja.
He said beggars pose security risks, serve as informants to criminals, and deface the city’s image.
“Not only that, the beggars and mentally challenged individuals also deface the beauty of the capital city, while some of them become victims of kidnapping for rituals and other negative purposes,” he said.
NAN recalled that in October 2024, Wike declared a crackdown on street begging, warning that Abuja was sliding into a “beggars’ city”.
“We will not allow that,” the minister had said, adding that the goal was to ensure residents could “sleep with their two eyes closed.”
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