Ondo state Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development has arrested a woman who claimed to be blind for her to get alms from members of the public.
According to OrangeFM, 30 year old Chinyere Onuara, who said she is a widow and mother of five, was arrested at the front of a commercial bank in Akure where she had been begging for alms for months.
She was apprehended alongside her 4 year old son, Chidibere, whose plight actually got the attention of the officials of the ministry and they made an attempt to rescue the woman and the son, unknown to them that she wasn’t blind.
During interrogation, Chinyere claimed to have left Ebonyi for Akure, few weeks ago, to assist one of her friend who is said to be blind, to collect alms, but everything didn’t go as planned when she got to Akure, in Ondo State.
She said the instead of using her as guide for her alms collection, her blind friend decided to go for another person and so she made the decision to disguise as a blind beggar to make ends meet. She eventually confessed that she makes at least N1,000 daily.
Chinyere expressed regret over her action and said it was to raise money to start a trade, upon the recent demise of her husband after he was allegedly poisoned. She appealed to the state government to empower her, rather than punish her. And he promised that she would never go back into such means of extorting money from the public anymore.
The Director of Social Welfare in the Ministry, Sola Aladesuyi, revealed that the ministry will contact her Ebonyi counterpart to verify Chinyere’s claims to be sure she is not a security risk to the state, before she is sent back.
She is currently being detained at the State Ministry of Woman Affairs.
