LAGOS, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, is reeling under the strangulating grip of street thugs, violent transport union enforcers also known as agbero, cultists and sundry criminals. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu must reengineer the security and transportation systems to surmount these threats that have made living in Lagos barely tolerable for its 22 million residents.
In his second inauguration speech, Sanwo-Olu vowed to take Lagosians to the next level via his THEMES agenda by running an inclusive government. “No one will be left behind on account of their social status, gender, or age; we will design all our policies and programmes to ensure that everyone is carried along and catered to. This is our promise to you,” he stated.
He must walk the talk. Lagosians have suffered enough in the hands of cult gangs, traffic robbers and violent transport unions. A faction of the transport unions has formed a sinister relationship with the state government and the state’s dominant political faction. Lagosians are troubled by cults, agberos, and thugs.
Lagos has the sixth largest economy in Africa, Nigeria’s largest population, providing 30 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, accounting for 65 percent of its industry, 80 percent of arrival flights in West Africa, and was named the fourth wealthiest city in Africa with $97 billion in private wealth by the Africa Wealth Report 2022. It does not deserve the violent groups tarnishing it.
Following the internal rancour in the National Union of Road Transport Workers that led to the suspension of a former chairman of its Lagos State branch, Sanwo-Olu suspended the activities of all transport unions in the state and named the suspended factional leader head of the Lagos State Parks and Garages Management Committee. It was partisan and an abuse of office. It effectively gave carte blanche to a union faction. Rightly, a court has pronounced its illegality.
Agberos are making life difficult for Lagosians, with transporters and commuters at the receiving end. At every bus stop and junction, they impose and extort multiple levies from commercial bus drivers, tricycle and motorcycle riders and violently assault those who dare to question their authority. Because of them, transport fares are astronomical. In October 2022, Lagos drivers declared a strike after accusing the state-favoured union faction of illegal tax collection and violent harassment.
The touts are at every park, garage, and highway; they have taken over federal, state, and inner-city roads. Some drivers have lost their lives, and many have sustained lifelong injuries. Lured by the easy pickings, the agberos and cultists have multiplied to thousands, spread to every remote part of the state, and have become a menace, given to violent street fights, petty crimes, and open drug abuse.
Along with street gangs, some now regularly harass shopowners and traders, imposing and extorting money from them. In many parts of the city, they compel private motorists to pay them for parking their cars in public places or using some roads. Their illegal charges are passed down to the consumers.
The International Centre for Investigative Reporting in 2021 calculated that agberos realise N123billion annually, more cash than what many states generate yearly. With such takings, their numbers are swelling. Lagos is saturated with a large army of able-bodied men, worse than the almajiris, because rather than beg, they violently extort. Some moonlight as traffic robbers, rapists, and political thugs.
The Lagos State government is playing with fire. It is the idle beggars and layabouts that regularly stage violent religious riots in the North that have become bandits and terrorists beyond the control of those who used to tolerate, use, or encourage them.
Already, once the capital of civic protests and ‘people power,’ peaceful demonstrations in Lagos are routinely hijacked by hoodlums, cultists, and union enforcers.
Insecurity is mounting. Parts of Lagos have become unsafe for residents and vehicle owners to use at night without being robbed or extorted. It is turning into a breeding ground for drug abusers, robbers, and rapists. The state government said it recorded 4,860 cases of domestic violence, rape and sexual assaults between September 1, 2021, and July 31, 2022. Many rape incidents are unreported by victims to avoid stigmatisation.
The governor must decide if he truly intends to build a megacity or a ‘thug, agbero and cult’ city; there is no city in the world where cannabis smokers, alcohol abusers, and ruffians take over bus stops, and streets forcefully collecting money from transporters while an indulgent government looks on.
In 1998/99, the then military administrator, Mohammed Marwa, curtailed their operations, but politicians reactivated them. President Bola Tinubu, governor from 1999 to 2007, is widely blamed for the resurgence and empowerment of the agberos.
Lagos needs to deal decisively with the menace of gridlock. A Lagos-based research firm, Danne Institute, in 2021 said the state loses about N4trillion annually to gridlock. Aside from the high volume of vehicles, the traffic is sometimes caused by road rehabilitation. But more often, it is down to the lawlessness of minibus drivers who drop and pick up passengers on the main carriageways, drive against traffic and generally flout all traffic regulations.
Lagos must enforce its traffic laws and restore sanity to the roads. Unenforced, laws are useless. Commercial motorcyclists are still plying the restricted routes and bridges in several parts of the state, where they constitute a nuisance to other road users and form lynch mobs.
Cultists and street gangs are having a field day. These criminals, who parade themselves as ‘Eiye,’ ‘Aiye’ members, among others, engage in street battles and reprisal killings. Their activities are pronounced in areas like Ojota, Ketu-Mile 12, Somolu, Bariga, Agege, Ikorodu, Ojo, Ebute Meta, Ijora, Mushin and Obalende.
In April, an undergraduate of the Lagos State University, Kamoru Lasisi, and a tiler, Lateef Akande, were killed during a cult clash at Ijanikin. The state police spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, while commenting on that incident, acknowledged the rise in cultism in that community.
Hoodlums regularly wreak havoc on innocent residents, smashing vehicles on streets during supremacy battles. When arrested by the police, some influential politicians get them released. This must stop.
In March 2021, Sanwo-Olu signed a new law prescribing 21 years of imprisonment for convicted cultists. He should apply it.
Street trading on highways and bridges that virtually disappeared between 2011 and 2016 is back. Some roads are now partially blocked by traders; traders and beggars removed from pedestrian bridges are also back. Security is lax, so criminals mug users of pedestrian bridges. The law prohibiting crossing expressways is no longer enforced, used only by corrupt law enforcement officers for extortion.
Lagos cannot seek to be a megacity with 14 of its 20 local government areas in the urban conurbation while residents, visitors and businesses are constantly subjected to non-state actors declaring and imposing curfews to celebrate oro and egungun.
They lock down shops, markets, and streets; this is shameful and ridiculous. Sanwo-Olu, the LGs and the police must stop this atrocious assault on people’s rights. Street beggars and urchins should be rounded up and rehabilitated in remand homes.
Sanwo-Olu must revive the tested security architecture of Lagos. His predecessors, Marwa, and Babatunde Fashola, partnered effectively with all federal agencies; the police were effectively deployed and well-funded to protect ordinary Lagosians. Police now protect only politicians and influential individuals.
Lagos has the resources to maintain an effective security network and surveillance for the benefit of everyone. But leadership is critical; Sanwo-Olu should provide it.