A Nigerian recently made a short documentary about the “Agbero culture” — street urchins in Lagos. He focused on the aggressive begging behaviour of young and able-bodied men. The kind of begging that escalates into threats of violence, robbery, vandalism, harassment and mayhem in no time.
These guys ask people for money with a sense of self-entitlement. It is the mentality of, “I know you have it. Give it to me and don’t be stingy.”
There have also been scenarios where some celebrities give them money, only for the street urchins to claim that the amount was too small and not enough. Most of them are short-tempered. They beg and issue threats. This is quite strange.
These antisocial behaviours have made the streets of major cities in Nigeria ugly and unsafe. These “Agberos” are different from the category of street beggars who parade begging bowls, singing emotional songs and repeating the same songs.
Within the same timeframe, a US-based content creator, Animashaun, made a similar commentary on social media, calling for government intervention to sanitise the streets and deal with the activities of thugs.
Yesterday, skit maker Brain Jotter also corroborated the views of Animashaun and the documentary producer with video evidence. Brain Jotter was being harassed and threatened by an irate thug demanding money. A foreigner who isn’t familiar with the situation might have assumed that the skit maker owed the thug some money and was probably refusing to pay it back. The entitlement was scary.
Across the world, it is normal to find beggars and street urchins who perpetrate crimes. Major cities like London, New York, Paris and others are grappling with similar challenges.
In Nigeria, it is becoming a full-blown crisis, with a lack of safety nets for such people to be kept at bay. There is also a political dimension to the problem. Politicians use these figures as tools for orchestrating electoral violence and other malpractices. The hungrier they are, the cheaper their services become. So why solve the problem when it is beneficial?
Begging is becoming cultural in Nigeria, and the problem flows from top to bottom. Our leaders beg international organisations for money. They beg for aid and favourable terms of trade. They beg for soft loans and struggle to pay them back. They also beg for debt forgiveness after being overwhelmed by debt repayments, skyrocketing interest rates and other financial traps.
Prominent Nigerian celebrities respectfully beg for money in the form of digital gifts on TikTok. Interestingly, they do it with so much ‘dignity.’
The northern part of Nigeria has the highest poverty rate across the regions of the country. Begging is almost cultural in the North, with the Almajiri culture, where male children roam the streets with begging bowls. Northern Nigeria accounts for roughly 66% to 80% of Nigeria’s total out-of-school population. With national estimates ranging between 18.3 million and 18.5 million out-of-school children overall, roughly 12 million to 14 million of them are located in the northern regions.
There is no exact official census or single verified total for the number of street beggars in Northern Nigeria. However, research and institutional estimates point to between 10 million and 15 million Almajiri children and out-of-school youths roaming the streets, a substantial portion of whom engage in daily begging. Official data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that roughly 65% of all impoverished people in Nigeria reside in the northern sector.
In the southern part of Nigeria, adults mostly beg. Apart from conventional beggars with disabilities who are stationed by roadsides and in busy places, we have the “corporate beggars” harassing people they know with emotionally charged stories about how life is hard, and they need small favours. Once you help them once or twice, the help becomes an expectation. The day you say no, the relationship collapses.
This set of people uses social media to track others like intelligence organisations. Once you display the slightest sign of comfort, a precision strike hits you. Their bases are Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and, most importantly, WhatsApp. People jokingly call them the “WhatsApp police.” Once you give yourself any treat and share pictures, they beg you for money some days later. It is comically called the “enjoyment tax.”
I will share a personal experience.
In 2024, a colleague at work organised a Go-Karting activity and invited me. The entire package cost less than £100. I was broke, and this wasn’t on my priority list. I almost turned it down, but I changed my mind and paid for it anyway. The experience was mind-blowing. I took pictures and made videos. I uploaded them, along with screenshots of my performance, on WhatsApp and Instagram. That week, my “enjoyment tax” was as high as a skyscraper. Financial requests from people never stopped. A hard lesson was learned.
Abroad, you hardly see white people relying on one another for financial support. If your problems are too much, go to the government.
In England, needy people put severe pressure on the Department for Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus, local councils and charities dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. Due to the failure of the government, the needy then have to rely on those who seem to be comfortable.
The problem is almost cultural, and there seems to be no way out of the quagmire. In recent times, people who have money have become increasingly secretive as a survival strategy.
Credit: villagetowncrier
Post a Comment