Niger River Project

Between the border and Kano can’t be more than 150km, but on the way we pass through at least 25 roadblocks. It’s not just the police manning these; the army, immigration and various other enforcement agencies are out in force seeing what bribes – or ‘dash’ as its known in Nigeria – they can extract from passing traffic.

There’s a routine to this that our driver seems well accustomed to. We approach a roadblock; the men manning the roadblock put out their hands to signal to the driver to slowdown; the driver slows down, in the meantime getting ready his dash; we get to the men at the roadblock; in one smooth movement, the hand raised to stop us becomes one outstretched to receive the dash money.

In one fluid movement, without even properly stopping, the driver has passed the note from his hand to the official’s, and we’re on our way again. It looks like a well rehearsed routine,.

Comparatively little money changes hand, but that’s not the point. Clearly, judging from the number of roadblocks in force here, this is a good way of supplementing meager incomes. This must one the easiest places to get by if you are a genuine criminal; not once did we actually see a policeman pull a car over to search it. If the money’s right, no questions are asked.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.