Few weeks after the retirement of the immediate
past Inspector General of Police, Mohammed
Abubakar, road blocks along the Lagos Badagry
Expressway have returned with the Badagry –
Seme end having about 11 and nine police and
Customs checkpoints respectively.
one of the police checkpoints
Following the ban on all police road blocks across
the country by Abubakar, the shameful activities of
such road blocks along the major international
routes was eliminated.
Shortly after the appointment of the new police
boss, Suleiman Abba, the road blocks have
gradually crept back to the routes resulting in police
officers insisting on performing the duties of the
Customs.
Even those by the Customs which the Service
headquarters have limited to just three, have
steadily grown to seven between Seme and Badagry
in the last three weeks. Investigation revealed that
the Customs checkpoints are mounted by officers
from Seme Border Command and the Federal
Operations Unit, FOU. With the former arrangement,
both units are surposed to be present at the three
approved checkpoints to avoid duplication.
Apart from the 11 police, Seven Customs
checkpoints counted by our Correspondent between
Badagry and Seme, others are gradually springing
up in Agbara and Badagry.
Each police checkpoint between Seme and Badagry
collects a toll ranging from N50 to N200 from each
commercial vehicle taking the route while anyone
found with as litlle as a bag of rich is made to part
with between N500 and N1.000.
The Customs Authority had in the past said that
there are only three approved checkpoints by the
Customs authority along the route which, according
to him, are those in Gbagi, Agbara and Aradagun.
Already, other security agencies are beginning to
return to the route to set up their owe checkpoint,
some of which are the Nigerian Army team that
comes out every evening just by the one by the
customs before Iyanu-ibiyi on the way from
Badagry, Local Council just after Seme and several
others by officials of the Nigerian Immigration
Service, NIS.
Similarly, officials of the National Drug Law
Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) occasional show up
at Agbara end of the Customs checkpoint to mount
theirs.
So endemic was the practice then that even a
Presidential directive by former President Olusegun
Obasanjo could not stop the illegal checkpoints as
his directive to dismantle the road blocks was
flagrantly disregarded few months later.
Before the dismantling of these road blocks security
agencies present along the route are the Quarantine
that has two, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) two,
Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), not
permanent and National Drug Law Enforcement
Agency (NDLEA) which also has two road blocks.


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/badagry-expressway-multiple-customs-police-checkpoints-returns/