By Ejire Folakunmi
There is a dangerous question Lagosians have stopped asking. At what point did it become normal to pay your way through fear? Not for a service or value, but to avoid trouble.
The recent incident involving Nigerian music artist Mavo, whose car was reportedly attacked after he refused to give money to street touts (agbero), did not shock people.
That is the problem. It didn’t shock us because we had seen it before. We have lived it, and we have adjusted to it.
Somewhere along the line, extortion stopped feeling like a violation and started feeling like a routine.
Let me be clear about something we often avoid saying directly. This is no longer a hustle. This is coercion.
There is a difference between asking and demanding. There is also a difference between survival and intimidation.
What we are seeing on the streets, especially in parts of Lagos, is a shift from informal street activity into something more structured, more aggressive, and more entitled. And entitlement, when left unchecked, always escalates.
There is now an unspoken system operating in plain sight. You carry a camera, you must “settle.” You drive into certain areas, you must “drop something.” And if you refuse, you risk confrontation
This is not a random behavior. It has become a system. A system where your presence is taxed, your movement is negotiated, and your safety is conditional. And when a system like this grows without resistance, it becomes embedded.
Here is the uncomfortable truth many people avoid: the system survives because it is funded daily, not by government or policy, but by ordinary people trying to avoid conflict.
“Just give them something and go.” It sounds harmless, right? But multiplied across thousands of interactions daily, it has become an economy, one that rewards aggression and reinforces entitlement.
Over time, it’s sending a message: You don’t need to build. You don’t need to offer value. You only need to demand loudly enough.
It would be easy to place all the blame on the individuals involved, but that would only ignore the bigger failure, because situations like this do not grow in isolation. They grow in gaps, gaps in governance, enforcement, opportunity, and social structure.
When systems fail to provide pathways, alternative systems emerge. Not always lawful or safe, but functional enough to survive.
There is a dangerous habit in how we talk about these issues. We explain them so much that we begin to excuse them. Yes, poverty exists. Yes, unemployment is real. Yes, the system is broken.
But none of these automatically justify intimidation, violence, or forced collection. Understanding a problem is not the same as normalizing it.
There is also something deeper being eroded. Not culture as identity, but culture as value, respect, discipline, and dignity in labor. These are not abstract ideas. They are the foundation of a functioning society.
This brings us to the question that keeps circling but rarely lands: Where is the control?
Because what we are seeing is not subtle, it is visible, repetitive, and growing.
Is it a failure of enforcement? A tolerance of disorder? Or something more complicated beneath the surface?
Whatever the answer is, silence is not neutral. Silence allows systems like this to expand.
If ignored, this does not remain a “street issue.” It spreads because when basic movement becomes uncertain, growth becomes limited. And when growth is limited, everyone directly or indirectly pays the price.
There is a tendency to react emotionally and move on. But this is not a moment problem. It is a structural one. You cannot solve it by removing a few individuals. Because as long as the conditions remain, the system will reproduce itself.
In the end, this is not just about the touts (agbero). It is about thresholds. What we tolerate. What we excuse. And what we normalize.
Because over time, those small daily compromises shape the kind of society we live in.
And right now, there is a quiet shift happening. One where fear is becoming transactional. And entitlement is becoming routine.
The real question is not whether this will get worse, because it will. The question is whether we will keep adjusting to it or finally decide that it is no longer acceptable.