20 arrested beggars escape from FCT rehab centre

• Fleeing inmates beg locals for food, shoes

• Arrested beggars intact- FCT officials

No fewer than 20 beggars recently picked from the streets of Abuja city centre were said to have escaped from the FCT Rehabilitation Centre, where they are being kept at Kuchiko-Bwari on the outskirt of Bwari town.

They were said to have escaped through a fence at the back of the Centre on Sunday night.

One of the residents of the host community confided in City & Crime that some of the fleeing beggars pleaded for foods and shoes from the locals in the host community.

He said the fleeing beggars claimed they left the Centre because they were not being fed in addition to being treated badly by the officials of the Centre.

He said though there was deployment of more policemen within and outside the Centre following the arrival of the beggars, the fleeing ones made their way through the backyard of the facility, while avoiding the official gate, where the security men were stationed.

When City & Crime visited the Centre on Saturday, no officials volunteered to talk, with most of them citing civil service rules, which prohibit them from talking to the press without permission.

It would be recalled that the principal of the Centre, was recently killed within the premises by yet-to-be identified assailants.

But Peter Olumuji, Secretary, Command and Control Centre of the Taskforce established to enforce sanity in Abuja city, said no inmate escaped from the Centre.

He said security had been beef up at the Centre to secure the inmates and the staff.

Olumuji said the beggars were taking there for profiling and rehabilitation, adding that any of them who don’t want to stay would be repatriated to their states of origin.

On feeding, he said the FCT Social Development Secretariat was responsible for the welfare of the inmates, adding that the Secretariat would do everything possible to cater for the welfare of the inmates.