Benin-The Wild-Wild West!

BENIN

The Wild, Wild West

Nigeria and Benin recently opened a nearly $21 million border crossing to deal with the crime that proliferates around the lawless frontier between the two West African countries.

“Travelers and traders battle corrupt officials, hawkers and buzzing moto-taxis just to get to the other side,” wrote Agence France-Presse.

Citizens of the 15 mostly poor countries in the Economic Community of West African States can move freely and reside in other member states. But those 15 nations don’t share tax rates and regulations, like customs on imported goods, so everyone is understandably trying to exploit or avoid different rules in different countries to make a buck.

The result is a free-for-all where, for example, criminals steal cars in Nigeria, refurbish them in Benin and then sell them back to Nigerians as cheap used cars. “I wanted to make it big, that is why I formed my own car snatching gang,” a thief confessed to police, according to the Daily Trust, a Nigerian newspaper.

The most dangerous but lucrative and easily transportable items – drugs – are also a major problem on the border. The News Agency of Nigeria reported last month on how customs agents had seized rice, tires and marijuana, as well as 67 cartons of Tramadol tablets and Codeine syrup over a 30-day period this fall. Tramadol and Codeine are opioids.

Drugs breed corruption.

A court in Benin recently sentenced opposition parliamentarian Atao Hinnouho to six years in jail for trafficking in drugs, reportedAFP. He was specifically accused of dealing in counterfeit drugs – a scourge that claims more than 100,000 lives a year in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization has estimated.

A lawyer for Hinnouho denounced the trial as political and vowed to appeal.

Another opposition leader in Benin, poultry magnate Sebastien Ajavon, was also sentenced to 20 years in prison for trafficking 40 pounds of cocaine. He’s now in France, where he has applied for political asylum, said Africanews. Forbes wrote that he was challenging the conviction, saying the prosecution is politically motivated and the sentence was too harsh.

He might be right.

Ajavon was convicted by the Court of Punishment of Economic Crimes and Terrorism, a special chamber created to crack down on the country’s crime epidemic. But, astonishingly, its decisions are not subject to appeal.

The court has gone after other politicians and rivals of President Patrice Talon, including former Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou for allegedly not repaying campaign funds. He and others have fled the country, saying they’re being targeted unfairly – allegations they don’t appear prepared to back up in the court.

Benin’s political culture, rather than its boundaries, is probably what needs fixing here.

 the Wild-Wild West