Oyo State Government on Thursday reunited a 13-year-old almajiri, Musa Issa, with his family.
This is contained in a statement by Alhaja Faosat Sanni, the State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Inclusion on Friday in Ibadan.
The statement also indicates that a mentally derailed man evacuated from the street and was treated, was also reunited with his family.
Mr Issa Yahaya, father of the boy, is a cattle rearer living at Gedu village, near Okaka in Itesiwaju Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Sanni, who spoke through the Director of Child Welfare, Mr Sunday Kolajo, said that the boy was among other almajiris picked from the streets of Minna in Niger while begging for alms and repatriated to Oyo State.
Sanni said that the 50-year-old Yahaya took his son to Minna about five years ago to learn Qur’an in an Islamic school but did not visit him in the last two years.
The commissioner advised parents and guardians to live up to their responsibilities and desist from the practice of turning children to beggars instead of acquiring knowledge, saying that it was the right of every child to be educated.
The state government also reunited one Yusuf Olapade, aged 38, who was mentally derailed, with his family.
According to Mrs Christiana Abioye, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Inclusion, Olapade was picked on the street and handed over to one of our NGO’s in charge of rehabilitation of the mentally derailed persons.
“Yusuf is now hale, hearty and has fully regained his sanity, after he has received medical treatments and social work intervention as well as other counselling therapy from the professionals in the ministry.
“It is on this note that we are handing him over to his aunty Mrs Comfort Akanni, for bonding and integration,’’ Abioye said.
She further stressed that government was more interested in the good health conditions and welfare of the less privileged so as to make street begging less attractive.
