ABSTRACT

. This study analyzed the analysis of the population of street beggars in Abuja Municipal

Area Council (AMAC). It made use of both primary and secondary data. Using multistage

sampling technique, a sample of 400 street beggars was purposively selected and

questionnaire administered to them. Both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques

were employed to analyze the data. The result shows that 77.5% of the beggars were males as

against 22.5% for females. Also, majority of the sampled beggars were Hausa/Fulani

(41.5.7%) of northern origin; and 2.75% of the beggars were non-Nigerians. The Chi Square

result shows that calculated X² (17.691) and is greater than the critical value. (9.488) thereby

rejecting the hypothesis hence, there is a significant difference between socio-economic

effects of street begging and the resident population in the study area. One-way Analysis of

Variance (ANOVA) statistical technique was employed to test for the significant difference in

the distributions of the street beggars in the selected six wards. The result of the ANOVA

shows that the p-value .917 is greater than the alpha value 0.05 thereby accepting the null

hypothesis hence, the variations in the distribution of the street beggars among the selected

wards was insignificant because all the wards are having high proportion of beggars. Street

begging is carried out by diverse people regardless of age, sex, religion and marital status.

Based on the findings, it was recommended that Government should encourage western

education for adolescent and youth beggars in order to empower them economically. Also,

creation of job opportunities can go a long way to minimize street begging. Moreover,

guidance and counseling services should also be made available with a bid to reduce the

menace of street begging.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

In the last 10 years the attention of sociologists, demographers, psychologists and

social researchers has been on the menace of street begging, that has become part and parcel

of the cultural landscape. According to Tipple and Speak (2003) the number of homeless

people worldwide is estimated to be between 100 million to 1Billion. The Population of

beggars who seem to pass most of their time on the streets and public areas in many states of

the world has existed from time immemorial. In many urban