ALONG the Nigeria–Benin border at Idiroko, in Ogun State’s Ipokia Local Government Area, Customs and Police officers line the main road, demanding bribes from smugglers. Yet, beyond their checkpoints, more than a dozen illegal routes linking both countries remain unguarded. Through these unmanned paths, vehicles, goods, and people move freely, a practice that has become routine along the border, The ICIR reports.

There are currently more than 40 checkpoints between Owode and Ajegunle along the Idiroko–Benin Republic border. According to the reporter’s observations, these checkpoints are used to monitor the movement of vehicles and goods, but are also sites for extorting bribes and facilitating smuggling.

In scenes similar to brazen extortion by motor park touts, Customs and Police officers along the border compel motorists and passengers to pay bribes, while defaulters are made to park by the roadside for a search that attracts higher charges. These payments are not receipted.

With scores of crumpled naira notes taken as bribes stuffed in their pockets, the officers wield dozens of locally made spiked barriers, used to order motorists to a halt and puncture the tyres of vehicles that attempt to speed past. There are also other barriers, including dozens of used vehicle tyres and woods.

Other officers along the border include those of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and the Ogun State Vehicle Inspection, whom motorists also accused of taking bribes, but not as much as their counterparts in the Police and Customs.

Customs and Police officers make up the majority of personnel stationed at the checkpoints. While Police officers often collect bribes directly from smugglers and other motorists, Customs officials tend to operate more subtly; employing so-called “camp boys’” to collect the money on their behalf. Some uniformed officers also openly demand “settlements” from smugglers and motorists.

The officers and camp boys have different ways of demanding bribes. These include “Where is my money?”, “Will you not settle me?”, “Don’t go with my money”, “Settle me or else…” Most drivers along the route already know the rule. They hardly argue if they have some goods in their vehicles. They willingly dole out the N100 or N200 notes to the officers. However, they can pay these amounts in more than 20 checkpoints, depending on how familiar they are with the officers.

Despite their large number on the road, the Customs spokesperson in the state, Chado Zakari, told The ICIR that the Customs Police always arrested the camp boys.

He said, “There are Customs Police on the road who arrest camp boys. Any camp boy they find on this road, they should be arrested.”

Several motorists interviewed by the reporter queried how possible it could be for the Customs to arrest the camp boys it engages on the road.

Vehicles, rice, petrol and palm oil are the most smuggled products along the border. They attract the highest bribes. While petrol is transported in cars and trucks inside jerry cans, smugglers keep bags of rice under vehicle seats and boots. Others share the product into different small bags to ‘deceive’ the officers who already understand the game. No bag escapes Customs’ searchlight along the border. Even if the bag contains a kilogramme of rice, the owners must pay some bribe for it.

To enable them to carry more goods than their sizes could take, motorists raise their vehicles with big springs. With this, they can successfully keep bags of rice under the vehicle. The Customs is aware of this trick; and its officers pass the product after taking bribe.

Customs officers and camp boys collect kickback on any rice spotted, even if it’s a kilogramme. The general belief in the area is that every rice is a product of smuggling. The same rule applies to anyone carrying a keg of petrol. The reporter noted that rice retailers in Nigerian communities around the border prefer going to Benin to buy rice in small quantity because despite the bribes they pay, they will still make more gain than when they buy the product in Nigeria and sell.

Because of the delays caused by bribe payments at checkpoints, some commercial drivers don’t allow passengers with any form of goods in their vehicles, especially those plying Owode and Idiroko communities.

The reporter also observed that commercial drivers have a way of reducing the bribes they pay the police officers. They pay a fixed amount in the early hours of every day, with which they obtain a code. The code guarantees them freedom from making any further payment to Police officers along the route for the rest of the day.

Officers and camp boys file along the border from Owode, Oke-Odan, Ihunbo, Oko-Eye, Ilase, Ogosa, and Ajegunle (before Idiroko). While Customs deploy its officers from Idiroko, police officers emerge from various police posts in communities along the border.

The reporter travelled from Idiroko to Owode six times between Sunday, September 7, and Friday, September 12, to get a clear view of activities along the border.

Motorists on the route groan over the money they lose to the officers as bribes. They claim to be helpless and see the practice as a norm. Several drivers interviewed said the border belonged to the Customs, and they must accept whatever demand its officers made of them.

The ICIR noted that three parties make smuggling thrive at the border; The people who own the smuggled goods, the motorists who convey them to their destinations, and border officials who allow the goods to pass after receiving kickbacks.

Products smuggled at Idiroko, Ajegunle

Major products smuggled through the border are petrol, rice, palm oil, vehicles, palm kernel, frozen foods, and beverages. Nigeria’s major exports to Benin are petrol, beverages, and beer. Dozens of trucks move petrol in jerry cans from Nigeria to the border daily, especially at night. The petrol is kept in thousands of yellow 25-litre jerry cans used for selling vegetable oil and palm oil in Nigeria. The petrol, stored at various warehouses in Ajegunle and Idiroko, finds its way to the Benin Republic through illegal routes linking the two countries, including Bebe and Igolo towns. On their return journey to Nigeria, the trucks come with similar kegs of palm oil from Benin.

Rice, vehicles and frozen foods are also transported from Benin to Nigeria. They are cheaper in Benin. The reporter observed scores of vehicles at Idiroko without number plates. Many of them are displayed for sale at car lots. Some are also hidden at mechanic workshops as if they are for repairs.

The ICIR noted that while communities on the Nigerian side of the border are cautious with the sale of rice in bags, the products are openly displayed in large quantities in communities in the Benin part of the border.

Similarly, a pack of Coca-Cola and Fanta containing twelve 60CL plastic bottles was sold for N5,000 each in Nigeria. Each of the bottles went for N500. In Benin, it sold for 2,500 CFA per pack (N6,750), and a bottle went for 250 CFA (N675). Findings by the reporter while carrying out the latest investigation showed the prices had yet to change.

While Nigerians dealing in petrol smile to their banks because of the huge profits they make, their counterparts in Benin are happier, they sell more products to Nigeria.

Idiroko hosts several warehouses. Residents interviewed confirmed that many of them are operated by smugglers. There are also big shops selling goods and other products in the town. Buyers come from Lagos, Ogun States, and the Benin Republic. Goods at Idiroko are cheaper than those sold in most parts of Ogun and Lagos states.

“The Customs are aware of the warehouses. You can see that some of them are in hidden places that people cannot easily suspect. Once the Customs are settled by the operators, business will continue.

“The Customs used to bombard some of the warehouses and whisk goods away; they no longer do that,” one of the Idiroko residents who pleaded anonymity for fear of a threat to his life said.

He also averred that many of the smugglers operate at night when Customs officers could not match their strength.

“One thing we discover on this side is that once you block this place, they will open another place. They are always ahead. They think faster. They also have informants… They are highly connected. They buy phones for people who give them information about our activities.”

Speaking on multiple illegal routes along the border, he said it’s a general problem in the country.

Idiroko’s economy has collapsed – Residents

Temilade Grace, a businesswoman in the town, said Idiroko’s economy had collapsed. She said that about a decade ago, people came from different parts of Nigeria and Benin to build houses and do business because of the huge prospects for prosperity which commerce bestowed on the town.

Biyi Ademola, a commercial driver, said the town’s economy ‘collapsed’ when the late President Muhammadu Buhari’s government shut the border in 2019. He said things no longer remained the same since then.

“We used to have a big market at the official border post. People from Benin and Nigeria brought their goods. The market was very large, and things were very cheap. People came all the way from the heart of Lagos and Cotonou to trade here. Idiroko was a beehive of activity at the time, and it was a world of its own.

“But the market was closed immediately after Buhari’s government announced the border closure. You can go to the border today, even though the government said it was reopened, you can’t see much happening there. Many of the people you will see there are groundnut sellers and other hawkers from neighbouring communities crossing and paying the border officials. Nothing much is happening there. The real activities now take place along the illegal routes scattered across the communities.”

ICIR reporter’s travails with Customs officers

A car boarded by this reporter suddenly developed brake failure between Owode and Idiroko on Wednesday, September 10, at a major spot with Customs checkpoints.
Within minutes, several scrunched naira notes had found their ways to the officers’ hands through drivers plying the road. The officers, numbering about 10, forced every motorist to ‘settle’ them. Many of the drivers simply squeezed the notes into the officers’ hands and were allowed to drive on.

Displeased by the development, the reporter hid in the bush to capture the scenes as the owner of the car he boarded battled to fix the brake. Unknown to the reporter, an officer spotted him in the bush and came from behind to grab the phone from him and took it to his colleagues.

All pleas by the reporter to the officers fell on deaf ears, despite identifying himself as a journalist. They told the reporter he was lucky that he was not caught by police officers, whom they said would have killed him.

“You people (journalists) are the ones making us and police officers to lose our jobs when you post us on social media while collecting bribes,” one of them said.

They vowed that they already had the reporter’s picture and would track him anywhere if he did a report against them. Thereafter, they called their head office, which sent gun-wielding officers to arrest the reporter.

He was taken to the Customs Command in Idiroko.

He was first brought to an office, where he was made to face officers who deleted all the pictures taken for this report on his phone. The officers searched every application on the phone, including his Google Photos, trash, and ensured nothing remained on the phone.

He was thereafter taken to another office, where he met a senior legal officer, Okom Ogar, who addressed him and allowed him to go.

Major illegal routes between Nigeria and Benin along Idiroko border

The notable illegal routes are Ogosa-Bebe Road, Ilashe-Itasungba, Ajegunle-Bebe, Bebe Road beside Iko Gateway Grammar School, Second Side Waterside, Igbatefin-Akaja water side, Aseko waterside, Ijofin-Igiri River, Igbao creek, Idosemo creek, Bode Ase creek, and Idosa creek.

While dozens of checkpoints flood the border from Owode to Idiroko, there is no single Customs or any other officer on any of these illegal routes. Rather, the smugglers and communities have their local border officers who monitor every unknown face passing through the routes. For any foreigner to pass through unchecked, they must be in the company of a well-known indigene of the area.

What this implies is that every smuggled good that finds its ways into Ajegunle or Idiroko will get to Benin Republic unhindered. The process is the same for smuggled goods from Benin Republic, which make their ways into Ogun and Lagos States after getting ‘clearance’ from the officers on the Idiroko road.

While the Nigerian government makes no significant effort to block the illegal routes, the Beninese Government blocks the routes with heavy stones on its side.

One of the smugglers interviewed said, “We always find our way through despite the blockade.

“What is important is to go through the Nigerian Customs. Once we arrive at Ajegunle or Idiroko, I can bet anyone that we are safe. The Benin Republic needs our petrol. Even though their government does all it can to stop smuggling, we still manage to land our goods in the country.”

After taking the goods through the illegal routes on water and land from Benin, via Igolo and Bebe towns, smugglers bring them to Idiroko and Ajegunle, where they are transported to their final destinations in Nigeria. Goods from Nigeria are also moved into Benin through this process.

What remains baffling is that apart from some routes in Ajegunle linking Nigeria to Bebe town in the Benin Republic, many of the illegal routes are located along the Nigerian Customs offices in Idiroko. The reporter saw many trucks offloading goods, including beverages, at warehouses along the road leading to the Customs offices.

Nigerian government’s failed effort to stop petrol smuggling

The Nigerian government took some decisions to stop petrol smuggling along the border, but they failed to work. One of the decisions was to stop fuel sales 20 kilometres from the border. That is, fuel stations are not allowed to sell petrol 20 kilometres from the border.

From Ilase town to Idiroko, there are up to 20 fuel stations. Only three of them worked as of September. Some smugglers were seen buying the product at Ajilete community, and many of their drums were at Oko-Eye community.

“In 2023, Nigeria exported $236 million to Benin. The main products that Nigeria exported to Benin were electricity ($91 million), refined petroleum ($62.2 million), and nitrogenous fertilizers ($31.5 million). Over the past five years, exports from Nigeria to Benin have increased at an annualised rate of 5.45 per cent, growing from $181 million in 2018 to $236 million in 2023,” said the OEC.

Police vow to investigate officers engaged in bribery along border

When contacted by over Police officers taking bribes along the Idiroko border, the Police spokesperson in Ogun State, Odutola Omolola, said the Force would use its ‘mechanisms’ to investigate officers involved in the act.