Security officials aid smugglers at Idi Iroko border town

The story of the notorious Idi Iroko border, especially as it concerns rice smuggling is not new. The Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Colonel Hamid Alli (Rtd) had disclosed that in recently 70 Customs officers lost their lives while intercepting smugglers across Nigeria-Benin Republic border towns of Idi Iroko and Seme.

The Customs CG during a meeting with the charge d’ affaires of Nigeria’s embassy in Benin Republic, Madam Beatrice and Customs officers of Benin Republic in Cotonou, reiterated the need to review existing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Nigeria and Benin Republic, with a view to bringing them in conformity with internationally accepted standards in trade between countries.

An investigation by our reporter however suggests that the Idi Iroko border rice smuggling will continue to flourish whether or not the border is closed, as a great deal of the smuggling is done with the cooperation of the Nigerian customs, the border patrol police and the trading communities along the border.

When this reporter visited Igolo, Benin Republic, which is the point of entry for all smuggled rice, he counted well over 20 small and large warehouses stocked with rice, spaghetti, groundnut oil and frozen turkey.

The community has two massive trailer parks. One has capacity for over 50 trailers and the other could park 100 trucks. The park is known as “5te Alimos Sarl PARC GROS PORTEURS D’Igolo.”

The entire Igolo community of Benin survives completely on the business of smuggling, which is done with active collaboration and facilitation by the Nigerians.

Ms Benitta, a rice trader in Igolo said, “I have been doing this business for more than 12 years. I am not doing anything wrong. Nigerians used to travel all the way to Cotonou to buy and take through this route, but now we bring the goods close for them, they buy and worry about how to cross with it.”

Mrs Rose, A Nigerian who sells rice at the Igolo end said, “I heard people saying something about the closure of the boarder. That is even better because I spend between one thousand naira to cross the border every day. Nobody takes his good through them because it is more expensive.”

There are mainly three established means of smuggling: women and youth of Benin extract can take N500 from you and practically carry the rice, just right beside the border building to the Idi Iroko side. Along that pact, they pay N100 naira to a custom officer and another N100 to the Benin officials and they are in Nigeria.

The second method this reporter observed was that a typical motorcycle is loaded with between six and eight bags of 50kg rice and is driven through the push part to burst out in Owode Yewa South, and in other cases, at Songo Ota. These two locations have wellestablished infrastructure that support the smuggling cartels. The motorcycle riders take N1,500 per bag. Two of them, who prefer anonymity, showed this reporter how they separate the money they will pay customs and police border patrols along the bush part, amounting to around N800 per bag.

When I suggested that I wanted to follow them along that route, one of my informant said the only way was to ride one of those bikes, fully loaded. They also feared that riding with me may expose them to danger if I leak anything I may have seen along the way.

The third approach is the use of specially constructed (converted) cars that carry anything between 90 to 100 50kgbags of rice or 400 cartoon of turkey. They don’t have to hide because they are aided and protected by customs, border patrol and police check points along the Idi Iroko axis.

The drivers are specialist and they are well known. They pay N100 per bag at every check point, one of the drivers told our reporter.

A visit to Owode by our reporter reveals over 10 specialist construction shops that operate under the guise of ‘auto panel beaters.’ They make alterations to vehicles to include removing the seats, raising the shockAbsorbers and springs, such that the vehicles look like a ‘monster car’ with oversize springs and tyres without loads. Once the load comes on-board, they force the springs down and the car looks normal.

A 50kg bag sold for between N10,000 and N10,300 depending on the grade goes up to N11, 000 or N11,500 once it crosses to Ikolade Idiroko on the Nigerian side.

A senior officer of one of the border agencies told this reporter that he counted over 70 special cars the night before being helped across the border by officers between the hours of 9pm and 2am.

“Everyone knows these things and that is why one wonders what purpose the closure will serve really. It’s like cutting the head to treat malaria.”

When our reporter engage some residents in idi iroko community about the implications of the closure, they said nobody is losing sleep about it.

“That border gate na for visitors, all of us get our road,” one of them said.

Spending a night at a discreet location along the border route, our reporter observed the activities of smugglers between 10pm and 2am. There were massive vehicular activities around midnight, with occasional gunshots heard.

By morning, at Sango Ota various traders waited at different offloading locations, some even by the road side for the smuggled rice. Others went into the major markets. While some others (in a sequence of 5 to10 bags) went straight into ‘danfo’ headed for different locations inside lagos.

The 50kg bags sells for between N12,000 and N12,500 in Sango Oga market

Despite the ban on importation of rice through the nation’s land borders, smuggling through Seme, a border town in Badagry, has persisted due to the porosity of the Nigerian border, Daily Trust investigations have shown.

Daily Trust on Sunday and the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS). More visible were the customs and immigration officers. At every one or two kilometres drive, motorists on the expressway are stopped by the NCS and NIS officials on patrol. Our correspondent observed that motorists parted with some money at every check point.

“Here all these officials you see are only concerned about money even when you have declared what you have in your boot (car trunk)”, said the driver who conveyed this reporter from Iba.

“Bribery here is like a norm. Everybody is struggling to survive and you need to be smart,” said the driver who simply gave his name as Moses and lives in Iba.

It is this bribery culture that sources say has frustrated efforts to end rice smuggling as our correspondent learnt that new rice depots keep springing up daily with strong connivance with custom officers.

Our correspondent was told that a good number of rice smugglers are women who buy the products in Cotonou, Benin Republic, move them to small villages scattered around the border line before moving them to J5 Motor Park, Seme.

A source in the border town who pleaded anonymity said all security operatives are involved in the ring.

“Smuggling is carried out by a ring in this place. The smugglers, after buying the rice, would pay crossers to help move them from the Benin Republic side of the border into Nigeria. These crossers are known to all the customs officers. Some physically challenged persons are also in the business of crossing bags of rice. It costs a smuggler N1000 to cross with a bag of rice,” he said.

“The crossers then move the bags of rice to a J5 Park where they are stocked in small stores awaiting its owners. The owners pay a token to the storeowner. A bag of rice at Cotonou is sold between N5000 and N6000 depending on the brand.

“At J5 Park, the owners of the bags of rice then share it into small plastic bags. The owner could share a bag of rice into four bags for easy movement. There are drivers whose major business is to help move the nylon bags in their busses to the destination of the owners at a specific price.”

Another source said that smugglers ferry their rice in smaller bags to mini rice depots where they are re-bagged and sold.

It was learnt that there are various rice depots on the Mile 2-Badagry Expressway with new ones springing up daily where trailers come at night to load smuggled rice.

“There are depots between Gbaji in Bagadry and Alaba Rago in Ojo which is a major transit point. A new transit has just been opened at Jolag Hotel and Igolerin bus-stop. Those who use Igbolerin axis are mainly those going to Egbeda and Iyana Ipaja while the Jolag Hotel axis are those heading to Mile 2 and Suru Alaba.”

Tunji Bamgboye, a tricycle rider at Ishashi said, “Ishashi is a major rice route. Smugglers ferry several bags of rice from Benin Republic in wooden canoes also known as Cotonou boat to Ishashi through the creeks. Vehicles come to carry them to their owners at Alaba Rago. Policemen at Ishashi, Customs officials and other security operatives come weekly to collect money from smugglers. Also, the DPO collects a certain number of bags weekly as his share.”

Also speaking, Seun Hundeyi, Secretary, Commercial Motorcycle Operators, Iyan Era corroborated this, saying, “It is now a common thing to see women in their 30s and 40s carrying small bags of rice wrapped around their waist heading towards Mile 2. When they get to their destination they will turn it into rice bags for sale.”

The border community is an entirely fortified environment with all arms of security agencies involved in surveillance, wielding their AK-47 weapons. However, corruption among officers rubbishes all efforts to secure the border.

Daily Trust on Sunday learnt that Nigeria shares boundaries of about 778 kilometers covering about six states in Nigeria. Ogun and Seme in particular as well as Idi Iroko shares close to 30 per cent of the border. Therefore, many routes, some unmanned, become easy entry points for smugglers who allegedly connive with some unscrupulous officers manning the border.

But the customs insists the allegations are not true, saying they are lies deliberately fabricated by members of the communities against the customs’ clampdown on activities of the smugglers.

An officer at Seme border who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity made reference to various seizures and destruction of smuggled rice by the Customs Seme Command.

According to him, the command now makes seizures on a daily basis. He said the efforts still continue to completely eradicate the activities of smugglers whom he described as economic saboteurs.

“The allegation is baseless. It is a mere rumour. Thousands and thousands of bags are seized every day from smugglers”.