A group of beggars in Ibadan, Oyo State have lamented about low patronage by members of the public after speculation that some rich men usually ‘buy’ money from them for fetish purposes.
According to the spokesperson of the beggars, Imam Abubakar Abdullahi, Serikin Hausawa of Hausawa Community, Oja’ba, Ibadan shot down allegations that they sell the money given to them by the public to rich men for some fetish reasons.
He said: “The reports that some wealthy people are buying money from beggars, including the physically-challenged people, for money rituals is not true.
“As a result of the claim that some ritualists do buy money from these beggars, there has been public resentment against these innocent people.
“What we know is that traders, hawkers and commercial drivers do come to these beggars who are mainly blind and lame people, to change money (get smaller denominations).
“We need to clear our names so that people will not be punishing us for offences we don’t know anything about.”