The Highways & Byways Of Extortion by Odiawa Ai

The numerous checkpoints mounted by security officials are wellsprings of frustration and delay.

Vice President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Damian Okeke-Ogene recently communicated dismay over barricades and extortions across roads in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. “Today, the roadblocks have expanded, even to residential areas, and no one is saying anything. The extent of extortions at these barricades is enough to build a third Niger Bridge,” said Okeke-Ogene who lamented that various units of law enforcement agencies had kept on mounting roadblocks across the region, especially for extorting the motoring public, rather than for security purposes. Tragically, Okeke-Ogene is well-known fact on an old issue. Barricades and checkpoints mounted by security officials on Lagos-Benin-Onitsha Road and beyond are not only wellsprings of anguish as well as making the journey to states in the Southeast geopolitical zone ugly.

While recognizing that modern security is all about acquiring intel, digital monitoring and preventive mechanisms, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun has repeated that the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) cannot bear to get rid of checkpoints. “They are dynamic pieces of visibility policing,” he said, “which is germane to effective policing of our contemporary society.” However, this cannot be a reason for what's going on, on a considerable lot of our roads. Besides the menace of bad roads, the numerous checkpoints have become wellsprings of hardship, nuisance, trauma and loss of valuable time as a journey of 10 hours can last for two days.

It is important to note that a former Chairman of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL), Monday Ubani once hauled the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Comptroller General of Customs (CGC), Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Corp Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC) under the watchful eye of the court on this same vexatious issue. He sought a declaration that the proliferation of intra-state roads and highways with barricades mounted by their officers particularly enroute Lagos to the South-east is an infringement of his right to free and undisrupted movement as stipulated in section 41 of the 1999 Constitution. The Federal High Court in Lagos excused the case earlier in the year, contending that the security agencies were saddled with enabling laws to do so as a feature of their obligations to secure the nation and put crime in check.

Although the court neglected to resolve the issue raised by Ubani on why the measures said to be for securing the nation are weighty within one region and insignificant on different routes, he has an admirable point as concerns mount over this issue of barricades, negligible or inescapable. Besides the sometime suffocating barricades mounted by the police, soldiers, men of the FRSC, and surprising, enthusiastic touts, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has turned into an extra weight on motorists, prompting dissatisfaction and superfluous delays. They seize vehicles, and so-called contraband goods and in the process of extorting cash from their unfortunate victims. At certain roadblocks, motorists with vehicles as old as a decade or more, are intimidated and compelled to leave behind cash as the operatives have the monopoly of knowing whether the papers are authentic or phony or whether there is underpayment.

However frequently on the move, the ever-busy Naval Base area of the Abuja-Lokoja Highway in Kogi State, the Ibilor area in Edo State and the Okene-Edo-Ekiti route, are cited as some of the notorious checkpoints where these NCS operatives ply their trade. Recently, a member representing Ovia Federal Constituency of Edo State, Dennis Idahosa, petitioned the immediate past Comptroller General of the NCS, Hameed Ali over alleged extortion and harassment of motorists and other road users at Ekiadolor, along the Benin-Ore-Lagos Highway. While recognizing the fact that activities of smugglers and importers of contraband goods ought to be checked, Idahosa noted that this ought not to be used as an avenue to extort blameless and hardworking Nigerians.