A Chinese travel content creator Xiao Johnny visit to Lagos has gone viral across Nigerian social media for all the wrong reasons.
Johnny, also known online as Xiao Jony, documented a series of confrontations with street touts that left him frustrated enough to issue a clear warning to international tourists: stay away.
His videos, which rapidly spread across social media, have sparked a nationwide debate about harassment, extortion, and what Nigeria, at times, offers to the tourists it claims to attract. 
What Happened to Xiao Johnny
The incident began when Johnny was exploring a local market, sampling street food, and filming his experience. A group of men surrounded him and aggressively demanded money. When he asked why, their blunt explanation was that they were Nigerian, he was not; therefore, they could take money from him.
He said it felt as though they were asking him to pay for the ground he was standing on.
He refused. In the video, he pushed back directly.
“Work to get money, not like this. I’m a tourist. I paid for the visa.” He told them to call the police if they believed he had broken any law.
Xiao Johnny Encounters 20 Checkpoints in 10 Kilometres
In his travel review, Johnny claimed that during a roughly 10-kilometre journey in Lagos, he encountered more than 20 unofficial checkpoints. At each point, different groups of touts demanded money, sometimes framing it as a tax on immigrants, asserting it as their right as Nigerian citizens to collect from passing foreigners.
By the end of the day, his frustration had turned into genuine disillusionment.
His Final Verdict
Johnny concluded his vlog with a warning: “Don’t come to Nigeria,” he said. He advised any international visitor who does choose to visit to exercise extreme caution and to limit their movements to daylight hours.
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What Nigerians Said
The footage triggered widespread outrage. Most comments condemned the behaviour depicted in the videos without question. Some expressed embarrassment over how street urchins culture and the so-called ‘agbero system’ damage Nigeria’s image and reputation with foreign visitors.
The conversation quickly shifted from Johnny’s personal experience to a broader frustration. Nigeria has invested significant effort in recent years. It promotes itself as a destination for diaspora tourism, cultural exchange, and international visitors. The gap between that ambition and what a first-time foreign visitor actually encounters in Lagos is a divide. Nigerians in the comment sections were not willing to defend such behaviour.
Some pushed back on the idea that one visitor’s experience should not define the country. Most agreed on a narrower, more crucial point: the behaviour shown in the videos is unacceptable, it is not unique to this incident, and has not been seriously addressed.
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What It Highlights
Xiao Johnny didn’t come to Lagos to make a political statement about Nigeria’s tourism industry. He came to taste local foods and film his experience for his audience. Instead, he documented a version of Lagos that Nigerians themselves recognise and that the government has yet to find a way to confront meaningfully.
Unofficial levies, street harassment, and the entitlement of organised touts at informal checkpoints are neither new nor secret.
What Xiao Johnny’s videos did was give that ordinary reality a face, a camera, and an audience large enough to force the conversation back into the open.
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