Getting rid of nuisance beggars: Great riddance!

llegal immigrants begging for a living out there on our busy streets point to a happy, comfortable settlement here in Ghana with no recourse to their safety.  

While the much younger children are running around, playing by street sides at their risk, their nursing mothers have their babies laid to sleep beside them or feeding them under a small shady shrub with a second eye on those playing around.  

In the meantime, the grown-up children are moving alongside the traffic flow selling cotton wool earbuds and small brushes, again another risky venture. 

Nuisance

The men are never anywhere to be seen. One wonders if they do daytime jobs elsewhere. That is the life of some sector of illegal migrants who have descended on us in numbers. Very much a nuisance is how one sees them.

And so, the action initiated to clear illegal migrants who have flooded our streets, begging without stopping, is a good one.

Last week, the Minister of Interior was reported to have stated on his official Facebook page that a nationwide campaign, starting from Accra, by the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), has resulted in the arrest of 2,214 foreign nationals involved in organised street begging.

The exercise is good news for some of us because the aggressive street begging some of these nationals engage in is most annoying.  

One sees them as nuisance begging because when those little girls and boys come near one’s car to beg, they twist one’s side mirror to look at their faces and no amount of protest will stop them from touching.  

Nuisance, because their persistence to draw one’s attention while in traffic has no end. If it takes the traffic lights any longer to turn on green, they start their antics.

They bang on one’s car and attempt to clean it with some dirty cloth which ends up scratching or making marks on the car.

Because they literally live on the streets, they tend to leave litter around, worsening our already dirty streets.  

These same beggars have made some of the streets and open spaces around, their homes and places of abode during the daytime.  

They wash their dirty clothes and bring same to dry on the grass and weeds by the roadsides.

Confident settlers

One cannot take one’s eyes off these beggars when out there because it seems like their numbers keep increasing by the day.  

The most amazing thing is that their posturing creates a picture of very confident settlers claiming their share.

Their comfort, unfortunately, is our discomfort.

And why not, because they do not get questioned or stopped. Ironically, a few metres away from the Nima Police Station and in front of the Ministries Police Station, for example, they are out there doing what they like doing best.  

While one would like to welcome visitors in our midst, the invasion of the nuisance migrants can be irritating and a cause for worry.  

And now, as if they have buses that dump them in our cities every day, they are increasing in numbers.  

Out there on our roads, they are causing a lot of embarrassment for us as a country when we have genuine visitors visiting.  

The image they are probably taking away is a country that has left its women and children on the streets to beg for their living.

They may not know what is going on and may not ask either.

GIS

One is completely sure that the recent exercise by the GIS is not to bar anyone from entering our country.  

The exercise is to send a message that like all visitors, one should enter the country legally and live within its laws as indeed every country would expect.

As one urges the GIS not to stop at the initial arrest of 2,241, one hopes they would not make it a nine-day wonder to catch the headlines only but to continue until our streets are cleared.  

And when they have successfully cleared them, they should ensure that our borders and unapproved routes from where they are entering the country are effectively monitored or sealed.

One has heard about this kind of arrests or round-ups before in years past. In conjunction with the Department of Social Welfare, one was told they were screened and many were deported and reunited with their families.  

Unfortunately, those efforts must have come to naught and that is why we are where we are today.

This time around, may the GIS make their clean-up complete and prove to the illegal migrant beggars that Ghana may be a land of comfort, but not in perpetuity for nuisance makers.  
Yes, we accept visitors with open arms, but not the kind who come and create problems and embarrassment for us.

Let GIS bare its teeth with the help of other law enforcers to rid our cities and towns of nuisance beggars.

Writer’s E-mail: vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com