Area boys

Area boys (also known as Agberos) are loosely organized gangs of street children and teenagers, composed mostly of males, who roam the streets of Lagos, Lagos State in Nigeria. They extort money from passers-by, sell illegal drugs, act as informal security guards, and perform other "odd jobs" in return for compensation.

Area boys have existed in the city of Lagos since the early 1980s. However, under various names, types of Area Boys have been traced back to the 1920s. In 2007, the total number of area boys in Lagos was estimated at over 35,000 by a member of the Lagos State Judiciary; as of 1996, the number of them operating on Lagos Island alone was placed around 1,000. A 1996 study of area boys on Lagos Island by Abubakar Momoh showed that only 26.4% of area boys were from Lagos State, while the rest were natives of Ogun State (22.6%), Kwara State (14.2%), and Oyo State (14.1%), amongst other states. Most were between twelve and thirty-five years old.

Asked whether they were "proud" to be area boys, 18% of respondents said yes, while 75% said no (7% did not respond).

A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2001 report on Nigeria described the impact of the gang members as such:

The coercive and persuasive requests, petty crimes and sometimes violent offences by the so-called "area boys" to acquire resources, generally cash in the urban main business and crowded areas, have disturbed the civil society and defied the civic authority. Drug abuse among them has been variously reported as the cause of delinquent behaviour and crime.

One of the methods the groups use for extortion is to surround pedestrians, drivers, and passengers in vehicles, which are stuck in traffic, and force them to pay (for some actual or pretended service) before letting them go. To aid in collecting money during traffic jams, the area boys place nails in the road and dig up the streets. When the streets are flooded, however, they also aid motorists in avoiding ditches and pot holes amidst other services .

According to Momoh, much of the extortion from Igbo merchants by area boys is instigated by Lagos landlords, indigenous inhabitants of the city.

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