Traffic in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, is congested and chaotic. About 1.8 million vehicles used Lagos roads in 2022. The city has 226 vehicles per kilometre. The global average is 11 cars per km and the Nigerian national average is 16.
Congestion isn’t the only problem, though. Another is the risk of being a victim of crime in the traffic. Statistics are hard to come by, but the mainstream media regularly report stories about Lagos residents being robbed or even losing their lives in attacks by criminal gangs on the roads.
The population of Lagos is estimated to be nearly 16 million, making it the largest city in Africa. It sits on a small area of land, resulting in unending traffic gridlocks which also create an economic opportunity for trading by hawkers.
Government reports have pointed to street hawking as the cause of pickpocketing and robbery in the traffic. The government claims that hawking creates opportunity for criminals because people are exchanging money and displaying goods. Also, that people are pretending to be hawkers so they can rob people.
I’ve been a hawker in Lagos myself, during the 1990s. And I’ve also been kidnapped and robbed in the traffic, in 2020. As a sociocultural anthropologist and development historian, I wanted to take a closer look at whether hawkers were really the problem. What role do others play – gangs, for example? This was what motivated my research.
I argue that street hawkers are not the real criminals, whatever the police and others say.
The unfair criminalisation of traders has been used to justify curbing street hawking in the traffic in Lagos. Meanwhile street gangs can operate unchecked and the conditions that drive crime – like unemployment – remain in place.
My research
I carried out the research to identify the major actors behind the pickpocketing and traffic robberies on urban highways in Lagos. Studies of street hawking in Nigeria – Lagos in particular – have overlooked certain issues such as pickpocketing and armed robbery by unknown actors who mostly disguise themselves as hawkers in the traffic.
I interviewed people in depth and led focus group discussions between 2021 and 2023. By participating in hawking myself, I captured activities of known and unknown gangs which conducted various criminal activities in the traffic. I also interacted with many hawkers and street gangs who narrated their experience working in the Lagos traffic.
My research found that the majority of the hawkers arrested in connection with pickpocketing and robbery were itinerant traders. They walk around selling their goods in traffic.
Reports on hawkers as perpetrators of crimes in traffic have relied on political narratives and biases from law enforcement authorities and government agencies, which which mostly criminalise a group of hawkers from a particular section of the country.
I interviewed and obtained official reports of street hawking from the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps in 2022.
The immersive approach I took in my research enabled me to interact with dominant street gangs and provided evidence that they were involved in traffic crimes. During the two years I observed them, I adopted multiple identities. Sometimes I pretended to be a hawker and sometimes I clearly presented myself as a researcher, depending on who I was dealing with. I identified as a researcher among the law enforcement authorities but as a “street hustler”, hawker, and potential gang member among the various street gangs I engaged with.
Various gangs use the opportunity provided by traffic situations to rob commuters. I observed that smartphones and laptops were regular targets of these traffic robbers. This might be because of their economic value.
As poverty increases, some youth gangs are getting more aggressive, as I observed, in robbing commuters and motorists for daily survival.
Sometimes, they are disguised as hawkers, alms-beggars, and automobile technicians. They pick pockets, snatch bags or grab phones from commuters in daring ways during the gridlocks. While a few hawkers may have been involved in pickpocketing, what I observed was that the criminal gangs were the perpetrators.
Read more: 'One-chance' in Lagos: how criminal gangs rob city commuters
Why the findings matter
The research finding contradicts the usual story that hawkers are the robbers in Lagos traffic. It also shows the inadequacy of the government’s efforts in addressing hawking and criminality on Lagos roads.
While the state continues to combat street hawkers who are legitimately hustling to survive in the city, the domains of street gangs have been left ungoverned.
As long as government’s urban renewal policies don’t improve the social and economic conditions of the large, uneducated and unemployed urban youth gangs, modernisation will coexist with various forms of urban informality, illegality, and violent crime.
Moving forward
Besides identifying and prosecuting members of criminal gangs, it is important for the government to rehabilitate and reorient street gang members.
Investing in vocational education and supporting unemployed, uneducated and rural youths to start small businesses should be intensified by the government.
The government must recognise hawking in the traffic as a livelihood support mechanism in the city.
Tackling the menace of pickpocketing and other crimes on urban highways in Lagos requires a holistic approach without discrimination against particular groups.
Felix Ajiola does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
