30-year-old Chinyere Onuara is a reportedly a widow and mother of five, who was arrested at the front of a commercial bank in Akure where she had been begging for alms for months.
According to OrangeFM, 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.
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.
