The piece argues that Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, is mishandling the growing crisis of street children by relying mainly on enforcement actions — such as rounding up boys seen begging or washing windscreens along busy roadways — rather than addressing the underlying causes of child homelessness and street life. It highlights how these children, many of whom sleep on the streets and return repeatedly even after being taken to government facilities, are shaped by poverty, broken families, weak social safety nets, and limited access to education, and warns that repeated crackdowns risk pushing them into more serious survival behaviors and long-term social exclusion. The article calls for a multidisciplinary, humane approach involving education, social work, child psychology, and community support to prevent children from ending up on the streets and to reduce the scale of the problem sustainably — rather than treating it solely as a public order issue.