Kebbi traders’ lamentation

IN yet another distressing development that speaks to the dysfunctionality of the Nigerian society, traders and farmers in Kebbi State recently raised concerns about extortion by security operatives, expressing dismay over the exorbitant costs required to move truckloads of grains through the checkpoints manned by various security agencies. They lamented that as much as  N600,000 was required to navigate the checkpoints. Chairman of the Amana Farmers and Grains Suppliers, Rabi’u Mainasara, speaking with journalists in Birnin Kebbi, the state capital, said: “From Bagudu to Tsamiya, the security agencies have mounted 44 checkpoints on the road where each trader or farmer must pay certain amounts of money at every checkpoint before he is allowed to go through. The security agencies comprise the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). Security operatives posted to Maje, Saranfo and Wara Tsamiya checkpoints on the road to the border with Benin Republic in Bagudo Local Government Area also extort money from residents of the area.” Mainasara appealed to the Federal Government, the Kebbi State government and the heads of the security agencies to stop the practice so that the victims would not resort to self-help.

Also speaking on the occasion, the secretary of the association,Tukur Muhammad, highlighted the alarming situation created by the security agencies, particularly along Bagudo road in the Bagudu Local Government Area. According to him, marketers are compelled to pay N1000 for each 100kg bag of grain being conveyed. He added that the astronomical increase in the prices of foodstuff and other essential commodities could be substantially linked to the extortion by security operatives in the area. He said: “At Tsamiya market, a grain supplier loading a truck with 600 bags of maize or millet has to endure extortion of not less than N600,000 to reach Argungu and Birnin Kebbi.”

To be sure, the picture painted by the Kebbi farmers and traders is not peculiar to the state. Extortion on the highways is a national disaster that has festered over the years even as the heads of the security agencies, particularly the police, mouthed the rhetoric of discipline and zero tolerance for all forms of corruption. For farmers, in particular, the extortion by security agencies ordinarily mandated to make travel on the roads safe and secure is  a double tragedy. For one, they have to pay terrorists to plant or harvest their crops, and cases of terrorists executing farmers for failing to pay the levies they imposed in defiance of the laws of the land are routine. For instance, in October last year, Boko Haram terrorists executed 40 people at Gurokayeye village of Yobe State following the victims’ inability to pay the taxes they (terrorists) had imposed on farmers in the village as a precondition for harvesting their crops. It is a tragedy of monumental proportions that farmers who survive this climate of naked terror are still extorted by security agencies who are criminal middlemen in the food distribution chain. There can be no doubt that the burden of the bribes extorted from these farmers is transferred to the final consumers who are already burdened with the pains of a perverse political leadership. And to think that different agencies are on the road collecting taxes on behalf of state governments, apart from the security agencies extorting money from farmers transporting goods!

Just how do you force farmers to cough up as much as N600,000 at various checkpoints to move farm produce from one point to another in a single day? No serious individual can deny or claim ignorance of what the Kebbi State farmers and traders are complaining about. Nigerians know that such unethical, strangulating practices have become such a normal thing that security personnel openly and flagrantly perpetrate them on the roads without the slightest fear of retribution. Of course, the pernicious practice only mirrors the gargantuan corruption that defines the highest level of governance in the country and the leadership of the various security agencies. The truth is that there has been no leadership commitment to stamping out corruption and extortion beyond the acts of pretence here and there that do not amount to anything. The perpetrators see their superiors engaging in same acts of corruption and, what is more, the victims know that reporting corrupt acts will not make any difference since those who are supposed to enforce deterrence are also engrossed in them. This is why corrupt acts have persisted at all levels in the Nigerian society.

We do not see how the political leadership can keep telling Nigerians that it is working against corruption and that perpetrators are being dealt with while corruption becomes even more pervasive by the day. Human beings are rational enough to desist from acts that inevitably attract punishment and sanctions and the persistence and pervasiveness of corruption only point to the unwillingness and incapability of leaders at all levels to genuinely work against it, given their own involvement. We can only hope that the leaders will realise that the people complaining about corruption will eventually be moved to react in their own way to oppose extortion if they come to the conclusion that their complaints will never yield positive change. And that would only result in anarchy to the peril of all. It is therefore better for the leaders to recognise the unsustainability of a regime of corruption and work to overturn it.