By Toye Olori
SEME, Nigeria, Sep 26 1996 (IPS)

Youths aged between 12 and 26 make up the majority of an unusually large crowd in this border town 76 km west of Lagos.

Some are regulars. They are the ones who smuggle goods, mainly bales of second-hand clothing, across the border to Benin for the traders who pay them a fee.

The others are there because they want to return to the Beninese commercial capital, Cotonou, and recover property they were forced to abandon there, or hope to find some way of getting to their homes in various parts of Nigeria. They are mostly young traders brought in batches to the Beninese side of the border by the paramilitary gendarmes and made to cross over to Nigeria.

“The Beninois (Beninese) gendarmes have been bringing truckloads of these Nigerian youths since the raid began on September 13,” a Seme resident told IPS. “Initially, about three truckloads were brought from Cotonou on a daily basis with at least 100 deportees per truck.”

“The trip has reduced to one per day and the number of deportees has also gone down,” he said. “But more than 5,000 youths would have been brought here since that time. Some of them sold their shoes or belts to have the transport fare to Lagos and then left.”

However, immigration officials put the number of deportees at 316.

The Beninese move has caused misery for the young Nigerians, most of whom were forced to leave their belongings behind.

“We were picked up in the night and thrown into jail, some of us had no shirts on,” recalls Saturday Oviawere (22). “From the jail we were driven in a big lorry to Seme border and handed over to the Nigerian immigration officers.

“None of us was allowed to take anything from his room. I left 40,000 cfa (80 U.S. dollars) in my room which I shared with two other Nigerians,” said Oviawere, who told IPS he preferred to return to his village in the south-western state of Edo rather than relive the experience he went through in Cotonou.

“I stayed in the cell in Cotonou for two weeks without food,” he said. “Some days some of us would buy bread and we all shared it. Three Nigerian youths died in my cell during the period I was there.”

In Cotonou he earned a living by pushing traders’ goods in a cart. “I now beg people for money to eat here,” he said. “If I have enough money I will travel home.”

Ignatius Onyeaka, a second-hand clothes dealer before his deportation, is equally desperate. “I am staying with one good Samaritan woman here,” said the 23-year-old. “I came here with my shoes and belt which I have sold for food. Now I carry bales of second-hand clothes for traders across the border. I have to survive.”

He does two such trips daily. “I make 50 naira for each bale I help carry across and from the fifty naira, I feed myself and some other very young deportees who are not physically strong to do any menial job,” he told IPS.

Onyeaka had owned a stall in Cotonou since February 1994. He used to make between 2,500 and 5,000 cfa (five and 10 U.S. dollars) a day, he said. Although his passport was seized by the gendarmes who picked him up, he hopes that when things quiet down he will be able to return to Cotonou.

“I prefer to sell in Cotonou where I already have customers,” he said. “In Nigeria I will be a total stranger”.

Five girls deported along with Onyeaka were able to hitch a ride back to Lagos. “They are the only ladies so far deported,” a Seme resident told IPS.

Many of the deportees are bitter. Some want the Nigerian government to close the borders to teach the Beninese a lesson.

“Beninois come to Nigeria every day to buy fuel, food, detergents and several other things. Nigeria recently gave them electricity free, yet they treat us like criminals. Let our government close the border and let us see who will suffer more,” said Wale Awesu, who owned a shop in a Cotonou market.

“By now I know our shops would have been looted… There would be nothing to go back to in Benin,” Awesu, who had rashes on his body after staying in a prison cell for almost two weeks, told IPS.

However, officials in Cotonou denied any intention to victimise Nigerians, restating their allegiance to the spirit of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) as a guiding principle in their country’s relations with its neighbours.

(One of the principles of ECOWAS is free movement of nationals of member states within the community.)

The Beninese authorities have described the expulsions as a desperate bid to curb soaring crime. “Armed bandits and assassins now operate at will, be it day or night. This was not so before. Even during President Nicephore Soglo’s time there was no killing associated with robberies,” said Orou Guinikoukou, Deputy Director General of the Interior Ministry.

“Contrary to speculations abroad, the current effort at vigilance by Benin’s law enforcement agents was not intended to victimise aliens,” he added. “Rather, the worsening security situation in Cotonou has been giving us much concern.”

A senior Nigerian immigration officer who declined to be identified by name said most of the deportees had gone to Lagos. “We plan something positive to help those who are stranded here but I don’t have the details yet since my boss only came back from a consultation with Abuja yesterday,” he told IPS.

A newspaper report in Lagos traced the deportations to an alleged armed robbery on Sep. 12, which the Beninese gendarmes could not contain due to the superior fire-power of the bandits. The robbers, according to the newspaper’s source in Cotonou, were thought to be from other parts of West Africa since the gendarmes believed no Beninese could own such weapons.

“If Benin Republic is basing its argument on the robbery in their country to send Nigerian traders out of Cotonou, they must be making a mistake,” a Seme resident argued. “I read newspaper reports about two years ago, when a large quantity of ammunition was stolen from the bulk brought by the French government during their joint military exercise in 1994.

“Those weapons could have been used. More so, Nigeria has tightened its security along Idi-Iroko border with Benin to forestall constant raids by bandits from Benin.

“Unable to move into Nigeria, the bandits could resort to raiding their people. It is their profession and they have to survive.”

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