In the last
50 months, Nigerians living in the South-East and South-South geopolitical
zones of the country have been made to part with an estimated N306 billion at the
more than 6900 military and police roadblocks scattered across the two regions.
This is
contained in a recent Special Research Report presented by a civil society
organization, Intersociety, following a field survey and research that covered
the 11 states of Edo, Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa, Anambra,
Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Imo for a period spanning 50 months - August 2015 to
October 2019.
Lead
researcher in the report is Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi, the Board Chairman of
Intersociety, a trained criminologist and graduate of Security Studies; with
other research assistants led by Comrade Samuel Kamanyaoku.
According to
the report, citizens of the regions literally paid the staggering sum at
gunpoint to military and police personnel at the estimated 600 military and
6300 police roadblocks across the South-East and South-South geopolitical
zones.
While the
6,300 police roadblocks illicitly collected N250b from the said regions, the
600 military roadblocks bagged N56b.
The report
further showed that an average of N6.4b was illicitly collected monthly and
N76b yearly in the past four years and two months.
The N250b
illicitly collected by the Police, the report said, constitutes over 80% of the
annual budget of the Nigeria Police Force, which is N300b while the annual take
of N76b amounted to over 20% of the said annual budget.
The report
noted that no fewer than 34,000 armed personnel of the Nigerian Army, Navy, Air
Force and Nigeria Police Force stationed on the roads and other public arenas
in the two regions were involved in the said rip-off, thus suggesting that the
incessant military buildup and police siege in the two regions were mere
shakedowns after all.
On the
motive behind the report, the document read in part: “The report is also in
response to the proposed military operations in Eastern Nigeria, code named:
“Operation Python Dance IV” and “Operation Crocodile Smile IV”, scheduled for
1st November to Christmas Eve of December 2019 as well as the planned flooding
of the two regions particularly the Southeast with alleged greater number of
‘Federal Road Tollgates’. This is even as it is found that 70 percent of
all Federal Roads in Eastern Nigeria are a death trap.”
The report
condemns the militarization and police siege in South-East and South-South and
the deliberate lopsidedness in the location, composition, manning and
management of key military and policing formations in the two regions.
It also
frowns at the “brutal economic exploitation of the two regions and their
peace-loving and industrious people through series of unjustifiable and
unwarranted war-like military and ‘internal security operations’ and their
attendant official roadway robberies and other corrupt practices.”
The report
noted however, that roadblock extortion in Nigeria was first introduced by the
Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Customs Service.
It
continued: “Today, it has spread like wild fire and particularly caught the
operational attention of the Nigerian Military including the Army, Navy and Air
Force and Paramilitaries like Federal Road Safety Corps, Immigration, and
Nigerian Security & Civil Defense Corps. Use of ‘roadblock’ in the security
of a country or for purposes of safety of lives and properties is very archaic
and outdated. As a matter of fact, it is an attribute of a failed state or
system. Roadblock is also synonymous to war ravaged countries or enclaves run
by drug cartels or illegal mineral mining barons. Intersociety remains opposed
to the use of ‘military and police roadblocks’ in Nigeria or any part thereof.
This is more so when it is now ‘the more the roadblocks, the more the crimes
against persons, properties and the state.”
Included in
the special report are the estimated sums of money illegally collected at
roadblocks by military and police personnel from passenger-loaded tricycles,
motorcycles, shuttles and L-300 buses.
It
also includes the increased ‘tariff’ collected at mobile roadblocks mounted by
plainclothes police personnel from victims of ‘wetin-you-carry’; victims of ‘incomplete
vehicular particulars’ or ‘expired driver’s license’ or ‘stolen vehicles’;
victims of ‘carriers of contrabands’ or ‘exhibits’ including unregistered and
substandard drugs. There is also the staggering ‘tolls’ paid at police
roadblocks, by marketers of hard drugs such as Indian Hemp, Cocaine, Codeine
and Tramadol as well as substandard drugs.
Others are
monies collected at Military roadblocks from each tipper or 911 lorry or Datsun
truck or L-300 bus or tricycle loaded with wares, at Atani Road Junction Navy
roadblock.
Also
the higher categories of monies collected at Military roadblock from each
trailer or container body loaded with wares and also, the ‘fees’ collected at
Military roadblocks from each oil and gas tanker-trailer, along Owerri-Egbema-Elele-Port
Harcourt Road and other roads linking oil and gas producing communities in
South-South and South-East.
The report
states: “This is a routine at Atani Road Junction Navy roadblock, Onitsha
Bridgehead Army checkpoint and other major military checkpoints in the two
regions. “Money for Navy” of N100 per day is also collected at Onitsha Upper
Iweka and Onitsha-Owerri Expressway where they maintain roadblocks. Such
illicit sum is collected by civilian agents jointly raised by the Army/Navy and
the leaders of the affected commercial transport unions with agreed commissions
for leaders of the commercial unions.”
The report
also observed that there are “sales spot Navy/Army approval fees”, collected
once from each of the new roadside petty traders including mobile advertisers
and ‘professional beggars’.
This is the
case at Onitsha Niger Bridgehead area including Atani Road and Uga Junctions
courtesy of Nigerian Navy, which also collects a fee per day from every
roadside petty trader and from anybody that crosses himself or herself or wares
over the two major lanes of the Asaba-Onitsha Expressway.
The rest are
daily ‘loading permit fee’ for every Tricycle/shuttle Bus/L-300 Bus driver for
loading at ‘rush hours’. This is also the case at Onitsha Niger Bridgehead area
particularly at Atani Road Junction Navy roadblock, the fee per ‘turn’
collected indirectly in the day time and directly from 7pm by soldiers from
every tricycle or motorbike or shuttle bus or L-300 bus driver plying intercity
roads or streets in commercial cities located in Southeast and South-south
particularly Aba in Abia State.
Also
included is, “The ‘essential commodity daily returns,’ running into tens of
thousands to hundreds of thousands of naira, as case may be, for each of the
military roadblocks per day. This is perpetrated by each of the Military
Checkpoints located close to arenas where such commodities are mined or
excavated or extracted. These include oil and gas, gravels, stones, red and
river sands and other solid minerals or industries producing ‘special
products’.
A typical
example is the river sand excavators along Atani-Ogwuikpere Road in Ogbaru and
Niger Street in Onitsha where agreed returns are paid on daily or weekly basis
to the Ogbaru Naval personnel and possibly the Army. Disagreement over same led
to public protests by the payers in 2018.”
The report
observed that the South-East and South-South are now the ‘headquarters of
military and police corruption’ in Nigeria, accounting for 60%, if not more, of
non-bureaucratically generated corruption proceeds.
It read: “Of
the two regions, too, South-East is the largest generator of commerce related
corruption proceeds for the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force, while
South-south emerges as the largest generator of oil and gas land conveyance
corruption proceeds. Till date, the two regions are the most peaceful and not
in a state of war, yet ulterior motives including false security alarms have
been capitalized to lay military and police siege on the two most peaceful
regions in Nigeria.”
The report
added: “The third largest Military and Police corruption proceeds come from
corruption associated with rendering of ‘special services’ to oil and gas firms,
banks, multinational companies and VIPs, which are never reflected in the
annual police or military budgets.”
The report noted
also that from open-source and reliable service-information gathered including
interviews, pictorial analysis, fact-finding, credible independent media and
rights reports, that there are on the average, 55 military roadblocks per State
and a total of 600 in the eleven States that make up the South-East and
South-South of Nigeria including Delta and Edo States. There are also an average
of 570 police roadblocks per State and total of 6,300 in the eleven States of
the two regions.
According to
the report, in Aba alone, there are no fewer than 28 military roadblocks in Aba
metropolis. “They were counted when we visited on Saturday, 12th Oct 2019. The
field trip was between the “peak” evening hours of 4pm and 5.30pm.”
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