Local community members and workers at an aquaculture farm in East Africa, highlighting the region’s fish farming potential.
The issue of crime has been with Lagos for years. In 1993, the Nigerian government described Lagos as the “crime capital of the country” with the emergence of the “Area Boys”, a group of social miscreants. Adewumi I. Badiora has been researching various aspects of crime and insecurity in Nigeria, particularly in the country’s south-west. He currently leads the African Cities Research Consortium safety and security domain research in Lagos and has contributed to a recent paper about residents’ experiences and perceptions of safety in six African cities: Nairobi, Bukavu, Freetown, Mogadishu, Lagos and Maiduguri. His research identified various drivers of insecurity in Lagos. They included youth migration and unemployment; inequality and poverty; the visible network of organised youth criminal groups; proliferation of small arms and drugs; inadequate preparedness of the city government; police corruption; the high rate of out-of-school children; and poor urban planning.
SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION