The lawless manner in which we conduct our affairs in Nigeria can make foreigners conclude that we have no laws worth abiding by. Two true stories I narrate below illustrate sad instances of the foregoing that I’ve personally witnessed, to my embarrassment as a self respecting citizen of Nigeria.

I share them here, in the hope that others may learn a thing or two.

Case Study 1: Sometime in 2015 I was in a taxi headed for Seme border from Benin Republic’s Cotonou.

At one of the checkpoints, a Beninese gendarme stopped the Taxi and asked each passenger for his/her passport in turn. When it came to a lady seated next to the door on my left, she told the gendarme she did not have a passport because she had never needed it to enter and exit Benin!

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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter

NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.

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PII 014: When Citizens Break Laws at Will, Foreigners Follow Their Lead [Two Real Life Case Studies from Nigeria’s Seme Border With Benin Republic]

The lawless manner in which we conduct our affairs in Nigeria can make foreigners conclude that we have no laws worth abiding by. Two true stories I narrate below illustrate sad instances of the foregoing that I’ve personally witnessed, to my embarrassment as a self respecting citizen of Nigeria.

I share them here, in the hope that others may learn a thing or two.

Case Study 1: Sometime in 2015 I was in a taxi headed for Seme border from Benin Republic’s Cotonou.

At one of the checkpoints, a Beninese gendarme stopped the Taxi and asked each passenger for his/her passport in turn.

When it came to a lady seated next to the door on my left, she told the gendarme she did not have a passport because she had never needed it to enter and exit Benin!

The Francophone officer understood enough of the pidgin English she’d spoken, to get visibly upset and order her out of the vehicle. If the rest of us had not intervened on her behalf, the taxi driver would have been asked to leave her behind.

As we resumed our journey for the border, my curiosity got the better of me and I turned to ask the woman why she’d entered the country without the required travel documents – especially an International Passport and Yellow Vaccination card.

She replied that she always crossed on the bikes that followed a bush path outside the formal route along which the immigration and other posts were located.

According to her, all she had to do was pay the bike rider and he would get her across.

I instantly knew what she was referring to.

The bike guys are part of an intricate network of illegal border crossing facilitators who work hand-in-glove with the men in uniform on both sides of the border, to get money from persons lacking legal papers who wish to enter and exit either country.

I told her that those guys got passengers through by greasing the palms of officers at the checkpoints, so the latter would look away and not ask such passengers for a passport.

“That does not however change the fact that you need to have a passport duly stamped by immigration officials at relevant entry and exit points when you get into a foreign country, even as a West African in a West African country.”. I added.

I went further to note that an alternative to a valid and duly stamped password would be an ECOWAS Travel Certificate.

To my surprise she ASSURED me I was wrong and that one did not need a passport to cross the border from Nigeria into Benin, pointing out that the bike men readily told her and others so, and the fact that they NEVER got stopped by the men in Uniform proved it was true!

At that point I understood her dilemma: She was not aware of the symbiotic relationship between the bike men and the uniformed officers.

The latter got their palms greased each time the former found a willing traveler to take across. It was/is therefore in their interest to let the bike guys stay in business.

In other words, the whole “You don’t need a passport to cross the border idea” is a myth propagated and perpetuated by the bike riders with the silent consent of uniformed officials they have dealings with on a daily basis.

It is in their interest to create that impression because it gets the more willing passengers. This is a money making business for them. To say the opposite would amount to suicide for them!

Many intending Nigerian travelers, especially traders who shuttle between both countries, often lack valid travel papers, and so they naturally find the shortcuts appealing.

I then noted to the woman that what a West African travelling across West Africa does NOT need is a Visa.

That is typically required for travelers from outside the continent.

I ended by warning her that getting caught in another country AFTER crossing over without legal papers may not be so easy to buy one’s way out of.

By the time I finished, I could see that she understood, but the look in her eyes indicated she was still not convinced she needed to get a passport, since the arrangement with the bike men obviously worked well.

This problem remains so pervasive today, and it is not helped by the fact that getting a Nigerian passport is prohibitively expensive.

Last time I checked the price had been raised to about N21,000.0 (Twenty One Thousand Naira).

The ECOWAS alternative went for just about a few thousands less than the International passport, and that made me settle for the latter even though my plans did not include travelling beyond the sub region in the foreseeable future at the time.

This brings me to Case Study 2: A few weeks ago, here in Benin, I met a young Beninese small business owner

His seeming open mindedness intrigued me so much, that I decided to share some insights about making money/selling via Web Marketing with him.

One day, we had a discussion that touched on crossing the border to explore business opportunities and he said something that shocked me.

“As an ECOWAS citizen all you need to cross the border from Benin to Nigeria and back is an identity card. You definitely do not need a passport.”

He had said this in response to a comment I’d made about the incident involving the lady mentioned in Case Study 1 above.

Note that removal of travel restrictions for ECOWAS citizens have been discussed severally over the years, with all kinds of agreements signed.

The reality that confronts a West African traveler on ground however remains in sharp contrast to the ideals proposed!

To illustrate, I pointed out to him that students normally are allowed to travel using approved school issued IDs, but that on a recent trip, due to reported cases of people presenting fake student IDs, I once witnessed a police officer at a border checkpoint order 3 Nigerian students out of a taxi I was coming in from Seme border into Cotonou, when they failed to produce passports like the rest of us.

When they repeatedly showed their student IDs, he angrily retorted that those had been too badly abused by dishonest others, to be accepted on face value. Eventually he let them go

Try as much as I could, this young man simply would not listen.

He vehemently insisted he had visited Nigeria from Benin even when he had no papers and had easily paid his way through, which proved passports were really NOT needed!

This, despite the fact that I told him that before relocating from Lagos to his country on 1st April 2013 (3 years ago), I’d visited the Benin Republic Consulate on Victoria Island in Lagos, to ask for guidance on what I needed to know and do before entering the country.

The officials who met with me on appointment during my second visit, had specifically asked me to ensure I carried with me a valid International Passport as well as my Yellow Vaccination Card.

I did not stop there, but also telephoned the Nigerian embassy in Cotonou, after visiting their website to read up requirements for travel. Again I was told the exact same thing: You need a valid passport and Yellow Card!

The steps I took before traveling for the first time are commonsense precautions that any adult with primary level of education (which is all you need to legally contest for public office in Nigeria) would be expected to take!

Yet I continue to encounter persons schooled up to degree level talking and acting (like this young Beninese chap) at the border.

They often readily offer money everywhere they get stopped, and since that often works, they conclude those documents being requested by the uniformed men are not actually needed, or are just used as a means of getting money from travelers.

It is people like the above who often come in contact with foreigners like my young friend, who they then – proudly -tell about how they cross the border without passports and why it’s completely acceptable to do so!

When it became obvious he would not listen, I told my Beninese friend to use Google to find out the truth, and to go a step further to visit his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Nigerian Embassy here in Cotonou to clear any doubts he had.

We parted laughing at the joke I made that he should never call my number if he ever gets caught in Nigeria without valid papers, by an official unwilling to accept bribes or one that demanded more than he (my friend) could cough up!

But even as I laughed, I felt saddened by our exchange.

My young friend knew that legally required processes in his country could rarely be bypassed by those assigned, in exchange for financial gratification.

So, for him, the fact that it happened so easily with regard to Nigeria meant that such processes really did not matter – in Nigeria!

To crown it all he arrived at this conclusion with the active support and guidance of Nigerians he interacted with, who knew no (or pretended not to know any) better!

That’s a shame, but I will continue to do my best to reorient all those I encounter with this problem. My hope is that others who share the sentiments I’ve expressed here will do the same.

SDN Blog™

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