Over two days in April, investigative journalist ‘FISAYO SOYOMBO drove the equivalent of a stolen vehicle from Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital, to Lagos, the country’s commercial hub. Not only did he arrive Lagos safely with the car, he returned to Abuja scot-free with it — and this is despite passing through a whopping 86 checkpoints in a journey of over 1,600km that lasted a cumulative 28hours 17minutes. He recounts his experience in this article for TheCable. As I drive out of First Avenue, Gwarimpa, Abuja, at 7:03am on Monday April 23 to exit the estate and commence what I knew would be my most tumultuous terrestrial journey ever, I ask myself one final time if this is something I truly want to do. The 59th-minute-of-the-eleventh-hour self-doubt was fueled not from within me but by the concerns of Taiwo George, editor of TheCable. He genuinely feared I was deliberately setting myself up for a few days behind the bars.
“This is really risky,” George had rightly observed on the eve of the trip. “You want to drive a vehicle with no single proof that you own it? If you were driving with expired particulars, it would be understandable; the penchant of interstate highway security for bribes is not in doubt. But to drive the equivalent of a stolen vehicle from Abuja all the way to Lagos? You may travel far but, ultimately, it’s just a matter of time before you’re apprehended; you may end up at the police station.”
NIGERIA POLICE, THE UNDISPUTED KINGS OF BRIBERY
The porousness of Nigeria’s highway policing is well-documented. In August 2017, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released a report confirming that policemen are the most corrupt public officials in the country, followed by judges and prosecutors. The damning report came the same day the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNODC) released its own corruption report that said Nigerians spend N400bn annually on bribes to public officials.
According to NBS’s 2017 National Corruption Survey, tagged ‘Corruption in Nigeria — Bribery as Experienced by the Population’, 46.4 percent of Nigerian citizens had had “bribery contact” with police officers. As reported by Daily Trust, that is almost half of the entire surveyed population. Judiciary workers (such as judges and prosecutors), the next guilty party, racked up a distant 33 percent. The report said 29.7 per cent of all bribes are paid to police officers upon a direct request before the service is provided.
“Police officers are the type of public officials to whom bribes are most commonly paid in Nigeria,” ICIR quoted the report as stating. “Of all adult Nigerians who had direct contact with police officers in the 12 months prior to the survey, almost half paid the officers at least one bribe, and in many cases, more than once since police officers are also among the three types of public officials to whom bribes are paid most frequently in Nigeria.”
Still, George — like many of us who are incredible believers in the Nigerian project — imagines the situation is not as terrible as the statistics suggest. Unfortunately, as we will find out in this piece, bribery among the police and other security agents is possibly worse than has been stated.
GOODBYE TO ABUJA
From Gwarimpa, the largest single housing estate in the country, I connect the Lugbe-Airport Road. After roughly 45minutes, at Giri Junction — the intersection of Abuja with the Abuja-Lokoja Expressway, en route to Gwagwalada — I run into the very first highway security. It’s the Police, two of their men standing akimbo either side of a parked patrol van, disinterested in the flow of traffic. Further forward, around Gwagwalada, is a second checkpoint. This time, it’s the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). Like the policemen I left behind, they pick no interest in traffic flow as well.
At Kwali — one of the two area councils created from Gwagwalada Area Council in October 1996 by the Sani Abacha military administration — the FRSC officials are interested in traffic but only perfunctorily. One guess-look at me from afar and they let me go without flagging me down. At Abaji, still on Abuja-Lokoja Expressway, a soldier flags me down and, after exchange of pleasantries, waves me bye without asking for any document.
I travel 15km forward before I run into the next checkpoint, manned by FRSC officials, just before a location called Achabo. I am waved to pass. Up next is the military checkpoint by Niger Bridge, where a dark, sturdily-built, mean-looking soldier peers into wound-down car windows and relies on his instincts to decide whether to wave their drivers on or stop them. Next is Zariagi, in Adavi Local Government Area of Kogi State. Although the FRSC officials stop the two cars ahead of me, they wave me on. It’s close to three hours into the journey and I can’t believe my luck, I murmur to myself, not knowing I am only minutes away from being found out.
N1,000 — THAT’S THE WORTH OF YOUR CAR!
Continued via link https://www.thecable.ng/reporters-diary-with-n46000-bribe-i-drove-a-stolen-car-from-abuja-to-lagos-and-backAside: Whenever my posts are deleted I find my next thread makes FP. I don't like it.  
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