The distance from Lagos to Accra is 288 miles. In Europe or America, a truck driver usually covers this distance safely in just a few hours. But travelling from Lagos to Accra is completely different story – it’s a hell’s trip because of corrupt customs officers.
Stills from the documentary: Bribes are collected either in cash or in goods.
The distance from Lagos to Ghana which is a few hours journey takes about a week or even longer due to the exploitation of corrupt custom officers on the highway .
The distance to the final destination point is only about 288 miles, however customs officers turn that route into a nightmare for truck drivers.
Western documentary high scale of bribery by corrupted customs officials, turning truck drivers’ daily routine on route from Lagos to Accra into a nightmare.
Investigative journalist Olukayode Thomas claims that “the confusion you see at the border is artificial. People who are on the border, the smugglers, the customs, the immigration – they want to make money, so the customs people, the police, they know that, the only way to extort money from this guy is to waste their time.”
However, the end customers of the delivered goods are those who have to pay the downtime costs, caused by mind-numbing bureaucracy of the corrupted customs officers.
Noel Kossonou, from Borderless West Africa, told that “we have delays, numerous check points on the road, and then, you know, bribes – corruption basically. And at the end of the day, these delays create extra costs and this cost will definitely be somehow shared through the final price of the goods.”
The documentary describes road across the borders between Lagos and Accra as hell’s trip. And there is no end to it unless the corruption is stopped, conclude the documentary makers.
Meanwhile, the United States of America has told their Nigerian counterparts that they will help the West African nation recover all the ill-gotten wealth stolen from Nigeria and now stored in the US.
The Nigerian presidency revealed this through a statement from Buhari’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu who revealed that the U.S will also help to train Nigerian judicial staff and prosecutors as part of efforts to tackle corruption in Nigeria.
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