Menace of smuggling in West Africa

A stench from across the borders…

Act One Scene One:

It is 12:18pm on a sweltering Thursday afternoon when the white Urvan Nissan 18-seater passenger bus quietly crawls out of the Baggage area of Seme border en route Lagos. You can tell the bus is taking its time to pick up speed, as if it is still trying to determine how best to engage its gears for the tortuous journey ahead.

Meanwhile, donning a stained white singlet revealing a substantial part of his heaving chest and sinewy arms atop a pair of what he calls “natty” jeans is Sarafa, the bus conductor. It is Sarafa’s second trip for the day since he set out for the first leg of his calculated five trips at 4:00 am.

Sandwiched between two forlorn-looking passengers is this fair-skinned, elegantly dressed woman whose age, you could guess, should be in the late 50s. Somehow, there appears to be something odd about her carriage and the way she sits, looking unruffled but obviously uncomfortable. 

As the bus makes its way from one security checkpoint to the other, manned by a detachment of military and paramilitary officers – comprising Customs, Immigration, Anti-Terrorist Squad - you notice a distinct and familiar trait exhibited by the woman.

Finally, by 1:30pm the Urvan bus with a Lagos registration number is making its way through the last Customs checkpoint along Agbara road, and by 1:33pm, it is already undergoing the “routine” Customs check there.

A dark, gangling officer with a breast nameplate tagged ‘Idris’, asks all passengers out of the bus. Reluctantly, the latter begin to file out one after the other, struggling to conceal whatever they feel may be confiscated or attract a “price” from the officers.

As they continue to curse under their breath, filing out of the bus, the officer peers into the passenger section, feeling his way into every wrapped and well-packaged consignment stuffed in every unimaginable space on the bus.

The thoroughly disappointed Idris, though satisfied with “a job well done”, signals the passengers back into the vehicle.

Wearing deep frowns and long faces, they soon begin to file back into the Urvan in a somewhat jumbled manner to regain their seats. As the struggle continues, Idris takes a good look at the elegantly dressed woman for the umpteenth time… before pulling her aside and in a terse voice, inquiring from her what she has concealed on her person.

The duo sustains a glare which seems to be lasting a lifetime. But suddenly breaking the stare, the Customs officer, with his left palm, wipes off his face thrice and orders the woman to come clean. Stunned by the unfolding drama of the duo, the rest of the passengers take time to watch the scene, more amused than dazed.

And like one hypnotised, she unveils four different wrappers tied around her waist, covering assorted jewelries which include – bangles, necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings, etc. Dazed beyond words, the passengers and other onlookers, among whom are other Customs officers, have their mouths agape. Not wanting to be left out, Idris’ colleagues move in at once, yanking off every jewelry concealed in her person. At the end of the exercise which lasts about 30 minutes, the Agbara Customs has made a haul of four big black polythene bags filled with jewelries from her.

Thinking it is the end of the matter, the woman is in for a big surprise, as she is soon invited into one of the rooms in the unpainted bungalows which serve as the officers’ operational offices and store rooms. Some 10 minutes later, “madam” re-emerges, clutching the seized contraband jewelries with her two hands after gleefully announcing to all who care to listen that she just parted with N160, 000. 00 to ‘bail’ them.

Act One Scene Two:

When she left home for her usual run of “quick deals” in Cotonou, off the Seme border, she did not reckon with what awaited her.    

It was 9:45am that hazy Tuesday when heavily pregnant Caro left home for “business.” By her calculations, she should conclude all her deals in good time - when she should have “ferried” her consignment down to Alaba-Rago, the “melting point.”

Typically, she already had her 55 cartons of turkey well-stuffed, both in the car booth and the backseat, with the excess cartons taking a fair portion of both the driver and passenger seats in front.

It didn’t matter that the Golf brand of Volkswagen car had no glass rear windscreen. Rather, that had been replaced with a black aluminum sheet. Beyond that, the rusty contraption of moving metal had been thoroughly deprived of its conventional seats, exposing the bare metals serving as the chassis and body build of the vehicle.    

It was in this sorry state that Caro, not minding her health and pregnancy, often rode on the vehicle with Taiye, the “contract driver.”

Now, gliding through the breezy Badagry Expressway lagoon wind, it was obvious the weather-beaten car was having a harrowing time surviving the ordeal it had been subjected to as it jerked, spurted and kicked; intermittently threatening to pack up on the road.

But somehow, mercifully, just as it descended the popular Gbaji checkpoint which hosted a combination of Mobile police officers, Customs, Immigration, Quarantine, NDLEA and a horde of thugs, hangers on and errand boys popularly called ‘kelebe’ -  it gave a violent jerk, coughed thunderously and suddenly ground to a halt.

Immediately, about seven Customs officers lost no time swooping on it just as the driver hurriedly attempted to bolt out of the contraption. Perhaps sensing that the game was up, Caro decided to stay put in the cab until she was helped out. With her protruding stomach, swollen face, arms and legs, she struggled out of the car, supporting her left waist with her left hand and firmly holding her right palm to her head - like one about to give up.

As the team of Customs officials pushed the turkey-laden car into their “parking place” she suddenly tore herself from their grip, untied her blue Ankara wrapper and flung her huge frame on the bare floor leading to one of the rooms which serve as offices to the Customs men.

A reign of pandemonium soon engulfed the entire area, as some of the officers, hawkers, shop owners and other onlookers rushed to her rescue. Now writhing in sharp pains punctuated by intermittent screams and spasms, Caro held on tightly to her abdomen, obviously in deep pain.      

Soon realising what exactly she was going through, a group of women readily formed a mini-circle to shield her from the hordes of prying eyes. With their loosened wrappers helping to form the human shield, two of the women rushed to the centre of the circle to assist the woman in labour.

Following what appeared to be an eternity, Caro was soon delivered of a baby boy in the midst of the melee. Almost moved to tears, but obviously in a joyous mood, the Customs men who had temporarily abandoned their beat, let out a few sporadic gunshots into the air, to herald the baby’s arrival. Obviously lost, regarding how to immediately honour the newborn, a beefy officer flagged down a vehicle, instructing two of his men to rush the “latest nursing mother” to the nearest maternity hospital, just as they immediately mobilised an emergency fund from among themselves to assist her. Still not quite done, the officer, appearing to be fully in-charge, with a wave of the hand, simply called out to Taiye, instructing him to leave with his car and its formerly impounded cargo - but with a caveat to “sin no more.”   

When Nigeria’s high commissioner to Ghana, Musiliu Obanikoro, penultimate week, decried the reappearance of multiply security check points along the Agbara-Badagry-Seme route, not a few commuters of that ‘international’ route leading into other West African countries applauded the ambassador, saying, he was indeed speaking out the minds of millions of Nigerian and foreign travellers who have to travel on the road.

Obanikoro who described the incidence as frustrating and uncalled for, said, the multiple check-points have created hostility in the borders of other ECOWAS countries and greatly affected trade facilitation.

According to him, “checkpoints from Seme Border to Mile 2 are more than 40, and this is very frustrating when officers who are to facilitate trade suddenly turn to stumbling blocks. With this, we can not promote trade in the corridors of the ECOWAS and it is unfortunate.”

Statutorily, both the Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Immigration Service are mandated to keep our borders safe, especially against smuggling and other unwholesome activities. In an effort to tackle the menace, government is periodically introducing and reviewing various efforts targeted at meeting with contemporary trends. Unfortunately, though, these efforts have been rendered ineffective due to certain factors that the country, even today, still contends with.

That smuggling is increasingly becoming a huge cost to the Nigerian state is no longer debatable. What is however on the front burner is the fact that substandard goods smuggled into the country have also become a destabilising factor for local industries, as their products are unable to compete with smuggled goods price-wise.

Smuggling, though obviously destructive to our economy, has become so profitable that the elites and powerbrokers in the society can no longer take their eyes and minds off it. Reason? Smuggling involves big money, big risks and only the big names in the society can venture into it. The poor cannot raise the money needed to travel to another country, buy goods in large quantity and bribe their way back into the country, even with the high risk of losing their consignments if they mistakenly travel on a wrong day. Evidently, smuggling involves high net-worth individuals who can be termed sacred cows. Indicted Customs officials are also not arrested because they serve as channels for many bigwigs who merely use them to carry out their smuggling activities.

This, no doubt, explains why several investigation and probe panels in this country always hit brick walls and are therefore never completed. Also, it explains why most times, those on these probe cases sooner or later become the hunted. At some point in these crime cases, people who largely are untouchables are fingered, thereby resulting in the natural “death” of these cases. Public officials who should, by ethics, exhibit the highest level of accountability and responsibility are seen to openly disregard the interest of the country they claim to serve, in pursuit of their selfish agendas. It is largely believed that the political will to fight smuggling is not yet manifest. Fear of offending some sacred cows involved in the practice remains a barrier against any smuggling campaign.

To strengthen the combat-readiness of the two paramilitary agencies, government introduced joint patrol of the two agencies with the Nigeria Police and the military. However, corruption among the border officers weakened their anti-smuggling efforts, as bribes often exchanged hands to give smuggled goods a smooth sail into the shores of this country.

Again, the military and paramilitary authorities went ahead to constitute monitoring teams to “watch over” the patrol teams. Today, the situation with patrol on our borders is still not palatable. Some officers implicated in bribery cases may have been sacked, but Comptrollers of Customs in Federal Operations Units are regularly rotated and encouraged to frustrate smugglers through massive seizures and destruction of smuggled goods.

The involvement of military personnel in smuggling and oil bunkering activities regrettably complicates enforcement of laws against these practices. For instance, it has become commonplace to find uniformed men escorting vehicles carrying smuggled goods into the country. The government, as things stand, has yet to figure out what punitive measures should be taken against these officers found performing illegal duties.

Regrettably, the country lacks a government with the strong political will to fight smuggling. Openly implicated and even indicted officials of the various government agencies still feed from taxpayers’ money with impunity.

Smuggling, it is believed, will keep thriving if government refuses to wield the big stick against the various shades of smugglers, and flush out smuggled goods by tracing them to the counters, shops and markets across the country. If the war against smuggling “merely” stops at the borders, smugglers would do all in their power to get the goods into the country through as many unmanned borders as possible. But once they realise that smuggled goods would continue to be monitored on the counters and shelves where they are displayed for sale across the country, perpetrators would be discouraged.