Lagos to absorb street urchins into KAI, LASTMA

As part of the all-inclusive system of his administration, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode yesterday said that work was ongoing to absorb street urchins, popularly called “Area boys” into some of the law enforcement agencies in the state.

Ambode, at the second edition of the quarterly town hall meeting, held yesterday at Lagos Island, said the street urchins, whom he chose to call “the good boys” would be engaged to work in sanitary enforcement offices, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) to keep them busy.

The governor, who was responding to the public complaints on growing activities of Indian hemp smoking by street urchins in Lagos Island, said his government was also concerned about their activities and already working in conjunction with security agencies to manage them.

He said: “The truth is that we are paying serious attention to safety of Lagosians and one area that we have not addressed properly is the nooks and crannies of the Island. But we are working in collaboration with some agencies to work on them. We need to engage everybody.”

On what he meant by engagement, he said one clear example was the last One Lagos Fiesta that helped prevent street and cult clashes in Lagos during the festive season.

“For the first time in Lagos, we had a Christmas without street fighting and war because we gave them an alternative by locking them down for five days in various centres of the One Lagos Fiesta, instead of them locking themselves down in their various streets,” he said.

The governor, while recounting the activities of his administration in the last three months, said that the state had begun recruitment of 1,300 LASTMA officials, coupled with the N25b Employment Trust Fund (ETF) to create jobs for Lagos residents.

“We are confident that these efforts will translate to new businesses and jobs for Lagosians very soon.”