We lost count of the checkpoints we encountered from Lagos to Benin. There was a roadblock or two, every 500 meters or thereabouts, manned by heavily armed, unsmiling, gun toting officers who barked instructions through alcohol stained teeth and breath.

“Clear here….Oya park,” they would order, guns drawn. Once near the driver, they would go: “Oya wetin dey? Make us happy. Quick...quick. Time no dey…”

And onto the next driver they would go, mouthing the same words.

Pulse also noticed that armed soldiers and FRSC personnel who pretended to be serious, asked the same questions. “Show me ya particulars and license,” they would order as uncouth and aggressively as possible, two minutes after the last officers at the last roadblock had asked the driver to tender the same documents.

“Wetin this police ask wey the other officers no ask just na na..” our driver remarked exasperatedly on one occasion, after he had been forced to part with N200 for no offense whatsoever. “Na do them do this country laidis? Pesin wey swear for Naija laidis no try at all..We suppose go beg am.”

The extortion was brazen throughout the trip, the gun toting officers unashamed in the scorching sun. 

And so it was until we went past Benin, drove through Delta, Asaba and sped past Onitsha. From Enugu to Ebonyi to Itigidi and Ugep, there were more police extortion points.

You are only asked to proceed after parting with some money or after you have pleaded that you have no money to hand over.

“Ok, just buy us water. This sun too much. Happy weekend sah!”

Two days later, Pulse embarked on another road trip from Obubra in Cross River to Mbalung, Ikpayongo in Benue State and the story was pretty much the same. Soldiers and police officers begged or forced drivers to part with money for passage.

Only a few of these roadblocks bothered to carry out a thorough search on vehicles. Only a few asked passengers to alight for frisking. None inspected bus or car trunks.

On the drive back to Lagos on Wednesday, December 4, along the Enugu-Port Harcourt highway, police personnel delayed our trip for an hour after seizing the smartphone of a passenger for inspection because he looked like a ‘Yahoo boy.’

The numerous checkpoints on roads across Nigeria compound traffic, double journey time and leave a toll on commercial transport companies who have to factor ‘bribes to officers’ into the fare charged passengers.

On Thursday, December 5, 2019, the Nigerian senate asked the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to rid the roads of extortion points. 

The lawmakers also urged Adamu to direct officers to stop extorting Nigerians during stop and search procedures in the guise of checking vehicle particulars.

In a statement signed by the Special Assistant (Press) to President of the Senate, Ezrel Tabiowo, the senate appealed “to the Inspector General of Police to as a matter of urgency review the number of checkpoints on Lagos-Onitsha federal highway with a view to scaling them down and all other federal highways in the country not only as a result of the coming yuletide festivities but all times from now going forward."

In December of 2018, Nigeria’s then IGP, Ibrahim Idris, ordered the dismantling of all police checkpoints across the country. However, the ban was never enforced and the roadblocks remain. 

In 2010, then IGP Ogbonna Onovo also banned roadblocks nationwide. But no police officer listened to him.

Almost all IGPs and states CPs (Commissioners of Police) in Nigeria’s recent history have announced the dismantling of extortion points with no enforcement, monitoring plan or follow-up whatsoever. 

Nigeria's police officers have often been called out for human rights violations, extortion, disproportionate use of force and profiling in dealings with the civilian population.