007 Area Boys

Area boys’ are synonymous with urban fear in Lagos, West Africa’s mega-city and Nigeria’s commercial capital. They are boys from a given area organized into a survival network. They have no allegiance to any ideology or creed, only to their locality and the young men they cohabit it with. Many are orphans or have been […]

artiste Tom Saater Lagos, Nigeria

Tom Saater is a documentary photographer and short-film maker from Nigeria. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in the 2015 Venice Biennale, University of Oxford UK, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, part of the EverydayAfrica at the LOOK3 Festival 2016, and Addis Foto Festival, among others. He has been commissioned and published […]

Read more
Publish date
20 X 30 Inches Canvas size
939 Views
Area boys’ are synonymous with urban fear in Lagos, West Africa’s mega-city and Nigeria’s commercial capital. They are boys from a given area organized into a survival network. They have no allegiance to any ideology or creed, only to their locality and the young men they cohabit it with. Many are orphans or have been disowned by their families after joining the area boys or committing a crime and bringing a bad name to the family. Others are just trying to get by. Mostly they sleep in the street or in makeshift shelters. The bosses and big men live in tenements called ‘face me, I face you’ for their rows of tiny rectangular rooms with entrances facing one another.
The boys are omnipresent in the city, smoking weed under overpasses, slouching on the outskirts of markets, and hustling everyone they can for small money in the vast markets on Lagos Island. From a distance, they are an ominous presence, and up close they can be terrifying. Area boys attacked me before I started this project, as I was shooting from a highway bridge in Lagos one night.
I wanted to understand my attackers and the desperation that fuels their violence. I began this ongoing photography project to take a closer look at the individuals that live and perpetuate the myth of the area boy. Intimate portraits humanize these men that are too often simplified as an urban menace. By spending time with the area boys and photographing them the way they see themselves I am exploring the truth and fiction of Lagosian gangsters.

Related artworks