By Dili Utomi
I went on a trip with a colleague to the border town of Seme , a town that separates Nigeria from the Republic of Benin.
The journey from the mainland of Lagos to this hinterland was rather stressful and eventful. This is because a large part of the Mile 2-Seme expressway was bad and the construction work going on there has not been kept at the desired rapid rate. Again, the journey was eventful because of the large numbers of check points straddling the length of the road especially the Badagry-Seme part of the of the expressway.
We stopped at Badagry to end the first part of the journey and boarded a car that took us to Seme and that was when the real drama ensued.
A few kilometers down the road we, met the first check point and from there onwards, it was like a scene from a region under invasion.
Police, Immigration, Port Health, Army and Customs check points became the normal encounters all along the way.
While all the aforementioned security apparatuses are all legitimately empowered by the constitution to have certain presence in strategic places and in some cases along the road, the multiplicity of check points along this particular section of the West African corridor is benumbing and totally incomprehensible.
The driver of our vehicle was at every police check point made to part with ‘the usual amount of #200’ and my colleague was so disgusted that he asked the diver why he had to part with this amount always and his answer shocked all of us in the vehicle. The driver answered and said “my brother, this is a normal practice , if I do not part with the stipulated amount, inspite of the fact that I have all my papers, my passengers will be discharged and I will be detained at the spot for not cooperating”. He added “during the day, there are 12 police check points in the morning and 12 in the afternoon making it a total of 24 and paying at least #4,800.00 on daily basis, but at night, there are almost 50 check points along the road”.
I spoke with a few Customs officers at Seme who answered on condition of anonymity and volunteered that they on their part have been trying to obey the Comptroller General of Customs directive that Check points along this corridor should be drastically reduced as the Customs have just about 4 check points between Badagry and Seme, the army has about 5 check points, some of the other security agencies also have less than 5 check points, but that the Police has rather increased their number of check points.
It is disheartening to see this spate of ‘toll collecting’ Police check points along this route that leads through to the major capitals of various West African countries.
On our return journey, we were in the car that brought us back to Badagry from Seme with a lady coming in from Ghana and one or two other nationals of the Republic of Benin. I received another round of embarrassment as we encountered the same ‘toll gates’ on our way back but ‘manned by different personnel’ as it was late in the afternoon and the fee payment continued.
Secondly, the Ghanaian lady on two occasions cautioned the Nigerian lady travelling with us to stop throwing thrash out of the car window, I was then having an embarrassing culture shock.
The action of the Ghanaian lady in cautioning the Nigerian lady and the slew of toll collecting check points along this route got me and my colleague totally embarrassed to the point that the check point matter became a subject for discussion in the car and the brazen nature of the collection was so outrageous.
This really got me asking this rhetorical question “do we really have any kind of shame as a people?.