Violent Crime In Lagos, 1861-2000, Nature, Responses And Impact

ABSTRACT

Armed robbery and murder are two of the social problems that bedevil the city of Lagos. Although these phenomena have their roots in the pre-independence era, they grew worse in the post-colonial period, particularly after the Nigerian Civil War. To curb this menace, the government responded with the imposition of the death penalty as the highest punishment for the offence of armed robbery in 1970. Mob lynching or what is locally referred to as the necklace treatment also emerged in the same decades the most brutal popular reaction to this menace while murder continued to attract the death penalty as had been the case since the colonial period. Yet, the aforementioned crimes persisted. Armed robbery for instance continued long after the end of the Nigerian Civil War indicating that the effect of the war on the offence could only have been momentary. The offence of murder equally deepened. Om traditions of ritual killings equally became rapidly adapted for individual ends. This thesis analyzes the dynamism of official and popular responses to these vexing fees argues that the occurrence of these offences have been episodic, rising and falling due to prolonged economic depression, greed, and a breakdown in Interpersonal relationships. The thesis demonstrates that official responses to these crimes were not for reaching enough, and the government actually requires a policy shift to address frontally the crime question in the nation's social, commercial and industrial hub. The study is heavily dependent on interviews which were achieved by purposive sampling, Press reports which cover a wide range of issues on banditry and murder during our period including some exclusive stories on some celebrated bandits in Lagos were analysed.