LAGOS’ WAR ON BEGGARS: 911 ARRESTED, BUT THE STREETS KEEP CALLING

A CITY CAN ARREST BEGGARS. CAN IT ARREST THE CONDITIONS THAT PRODUCE THEM?

Lagos State has arrested more than 900 people during operations against street begging, but the persistence of begging across the metropolis raises a question that enforcement statistics alone cannot answer: what happens to the conditions that bring people back to the streets?

The arrests, reported during enforcement operations in June and July 2026, reflect the government’s determination to tackle activities it associates with public disorder, environmental safety and security. Yet the continued visibility of begging suggests that arresting individuals and resolving the underlying social problem are not the same thing, ValidViewNetwork reports.

At Ikeja Under-Bridge and other busy locations, begging remains part of the daily encounter between motorists, pedestrians and people seeking assistance.

Some beggars are elderly. Some are people with disabilities. Others are parents carrying children or individuals whose circumstances are not immediately apparent to passing strangers.

Their presence can create genuine concerns about traffic safety, exploitation and the use of children for begging. But those concerns should not prevent a serious examination of why begging persists.

A government can clear a street without clearing the poverty that brought people there.

THE NUMBERS TELL ONLY PART OF THE STORY

The arrest of 911 people is a measurable enforcement outcome. It tells the public something about the scale of the operation. It does not, on its own, establish whether the operation has reduced begging, improved public safety, identified trafficking networks or helped vulnerable people regain stable livelihoods.

Those are different measures of success. If people are arrested, released and return to the same locations, the operation may be producing temporary displacement rather than a lasting solution.

If some people are being exploited by organised networks, the authorities need to identify and prosecute those responsible. If others are begging because they lack food, accommodation, healthcare or family support, enforcement must be accompanied by a credible welfare response.

The state should publish information about the people arrested, the legal grounds for their detention, the outcomes of their cases and the support offered to those identified as vulnerable.

Without those details, the public is left with an arrest figure but little evidence of the operation’s lasting impact.

AMINATA SOW FALL’S BEGGARS HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH LAGOS

In her novel “The Beggars’ Strike”, Senegalese writer Aminata Sow Fall explores the relationship between poverty, social respectability, political ambition and the people whom society would rather not see.

The novel centres on a society in which beggars become an embarrassment to those seeking to project an image of order and progress.

Its characters, particularly Mour Ndiaye and Keba Dabo, illuminate different dimensions of that conflict. Mour Ndiaye is an ambitious official concerned with status, political advancement and the image of the society he represents. The presence of beggars becomes entangled with his aspirations and the desire to remove an inconvenient reminder of poverty from public view.

Keba Dabo, by contrast, is associated with the institutional and moral complications of managing the beggars and the system built around them.

Their roles expose a contradiction: those in power may treat beggars as a problem to be removed while overlooking the economic and social arrangements that make begging possible.

The novel is not a policy manual for Lagos. Its value lies in the questions it raises about how governments define public order, whose discomfort matters and whether people at the margins are treated as citizens or as obstacles to a polished public image.

The parallel is striking. A city may want clean roads, orderly traffic and safe public spaces. Those are legitimate objectives. But if the people removed from those spaces remain hungry, homeless or without support, the appearance of order may conceal the persistence of the problem.

THE DANGER OF CONFUSING VISIBILITY WITH CAUSE

Street begging is not a single social condition. Some people may beg because of extreme poverty. Others may be living with disabilities or illnesses that limit their opportunities.

Some may have migrated from areas where family support systems have broken down. Others may be victims of exploitation or organised begging networks.

These circumstances require different responses. A person trafficking children for financial gain should face criminal investigation. A child forced to beg needs protection. An elderly person without family support may require social assistance. A person with a disability may need accessible employment, healthcare or income support.

Treating all these situations as one enforcement category risks punishing vulnerability while leaving exploitation untouched.

The authorities must also ensure that children are not used as instruments for generating sympathy or income. Protecting children requires more than removing them from the streets. It requires safe accommodation, family assessment, education and sustained monitoring.

The same principle applies to adults who genuinely need assistance.

WHAT SHOULD LAGOS DO DIFFERENTLY?

Lagos does not have to choose between public order and compassion. It must design a policy that achieves both.

First, the government should distinguish criminal exploitation from poverty-driven begging through individual assessments.

Second, it should establish transparent referral systems connecting vulnerable people with social workers, healthcare, shelters, rehabilitation programmes and employment support.

Third, it should publish evidence of outcomes, not merely arrests. The public should know how many people were reunited with families, placed in shelters, enrolled in support programmes or prosecuted for trafficking and exploitation.

Fourth, the state should work with local governments, civil society organisations and community leaders to identify vulnerable people before enforcement operations begin.

Finally, officials should assess whether the interventions reduce the number of people returning to the streets over time.

That would provide a stronger basis for evaluating success than counting those taken away during an operation.

THE STREET IS A SYMPTOM. WHAT IS THE DIAGNOSIS?

Aminata Sow Fall’s novel challenges readers to look beyond the social embarrassment that beggars create for the powerful.

Its lesson is not that every person begging should be left alone, nor that public authorities should abandon the responsibility to maintain safe streets.

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It is that a society must examine the human consequences of policies designed to make poverty less visible.

The Lagos government has demonstrated that it can mobilise enforcement personnel and make arrests. The harder test is whether it can combine that capacity with social policies that reduce the need for begging and protect people from exploitation.

The question is not whether Lagos should have orderly streets. It should. The question is whether those streets can become orderly without the people who once occupied them simply disappearing into another street, another settlement or another form of desperation. ValidViewNetwork reports.