The border where anyone can get in, even if they have Ebola
Category: Nigerian National News
Borders are a very important feature in epidemic control, and the ongoing epidemic shows how quickly things can get out of hand when governments don’t take their borders very seriously.
This epidemic originated in a Guinean town near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone, and people continued to pass to and fro freely several months after the epidemic began. Despite the high risk, Sierra Leone and Liberia left their borders with Guinea open, and soon there were more cases being reported in each of Sierra Leone and Liberia than in Guinea itself. By the time Guinea finally seized the initiative and shut the border to save its neighbors further trouble, the virus had gone out of control. The implication of this is that slack border control has been the root of the ongoing crisis.
Incidentally, even the station officers admit that the border is a very porous one. Actually it’s not even a proper border station. It’s just a makeshift one that’s been in use for years now because the standard station has been under construction. The border has long been notorious for smuggling and human trafficking, and the place clearly lacks proper monitoring.
YNaija visited the border on a rainy Saturday afternoon and people are crossing the improvised roadblocks freely as usual. There are few personnel at the roadblocks to do checks. So vehicles get checked, but people crossing on foot mostly pass freely. Most of the people passing seem to live near the border on either side. They greet each other and the station workers familiarly. It’s like this is not really a border to them. It’s just another passage way.
Meanwhile, at the Nigerian side of the border, the Nigerian port health officials are sitting in their post near the road and watching the scene. These gentlemen should be at the roadblocks screening people.
We asked them why they simply sit there and watch people stroll into the country and out. Oladipo, one of the border health officials says, “We’re watching them. We’re monitoring the people’s movements. If we spot anyone who looks sick, we’ll intercept them and do a check.”
He shows me his thermometer. Himself and his partner have one each.
“We screen arrivals with this to make sure no one is bringing in any disease. If the temperature is higher than normal, we won’t let them in. We’ll send them back to Benin. As for these people crossing freely, most of them live around this border either here or on the other side. We know them well because they pass here nearly everyday. That’s why you see that they pass without a check. We’re familiar with them. But when we see a stranger, we stop them. We’re watching the border.”
For this reporter, it was my first time at this border. But I crossed the border into Benin territory without even knowing I had crossed the border, and I made it back into Nigeria without any officer — health, immigration or others — stopping me for one second. Maybe they didn’t see me or they didn’t bother, or they didn’t notice I’m a stranger.
Clearly, the situation is beyond the control of these health officials. First of all, there aren’t enough personnel on the ground. There are just two health officers each on the arrival side and the departure side at the Nigerian border. Even if these two ask everyone coming in to line up and ask those in their vehicles to get out and form a queue, they would be overwhelmed by the influx.
Besides, these two officers have nothing but two thermometers to do their work. Oladipo says the government has provided nothing else.
“The government hasn’t given us any equipment for us to do our job well,’ he says. ‘Whatever we do now, it’s just out of patriotism and the feeling that if we let in just one infected person, it’s a threat to the entire population, including our own families back in Nigeria. If we are negligent here, it may affect our families. So that’s what we consider. There’s no provision other than these two thermometers.”
Some people recently tried to bring in a Nigerian corpse from Togo. They reached the Beninoise side of the border station and the Beninoise let them cross on to Nigeria after checking their papers. But the Nigerian port health officers didn’t let them nor the corpse into the country on grounds that the death could have been caused by Ebola.
At the departure side of the Nigerian border, the two port health workers on that side are having a chat at their post while the rain drizzles. They express their concern to me about the border condition.
One of them named Biodun says, “This place is in a bad condition as you can see. It’s a porous border. The conditions don’t make for proper checking and people can easily get through. But there’s not much we can do under these conditions. It’s beyond us. The Nigerian and Beninoise governments need to speed the construction of this new border station so that we can move over. There, we’ll be able to screen everyone and there’ll be no loose movement like you see now. Everyone, immigration, police and the rest of us, will be able to do their job well.”
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After the first Ebola case in the country was reported in July,
people feared that the outbreak would overpower the healthcare system
and result in a pandemic. But the government performed remarkably and
the outbreak was snuffed out within a few months. Today, Nigeria is officially free from Ebola.
Borders are a very important feature in epidemic control, and the ongoing epidemic shows how quickly things can get out of hand when governments don’t take their borders very seriously.
This epidemic originated in a Guinean town near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone, and people continued to pass to and fro freely several months after the epidemic began. Despite the high risk, Sierra Leone and Liberia left their borders with Guinea open, and soon there were more cases being reported in each of Sierra Leone and Liberia than in Guinea itself. By the time Guinea finally seized the initiative and shut the border to save its neighbors further trouble, the virus had gone out of control. The implication of this is that slack border control has been the root of the ongoing crisis.
 |
| Nigeria’s border crossing with Benin at Seme. Photo – Adedayo Ademuwagun. |
Nigeria has had a relative advantage in this matter, though, because
it doesn’t share a border with any of the other affected West African
countries. So a person in Liberia would have to travel 2,000 kilometres
across four countries to bring in Ebola through the Seme border,
Nigeria’s most accessible border crossing to the Ebola hotspots.
Although this kind of thing is quite improbable, it can still happen and
it’s why proper surveillance at the border station is very crucial at
this time.
Incidentally, even the station officers admit that the border is a very porous one. Actually it’s not even a proper border station. It’s just a makeshift one that’s been in use for years now because the standard station has been under construction. The border has long been notorious for smuggling and human trafficking, and the place clearly lacks proper monitoring.
YNaija visited the border on a rainy Saturday afternoon and people are crossing the improvised roadblocks freely as usual. There are few personnel at the roadblocks to do checks. So vehicles get checked, but people crossing on foot mostly pass freely. Most of the people passing seem to live near the border on either side. They greet each other and the station workers familiarly. It’s like this is not really a border to them. It’s just another passage way.
Meanwhile, at the Nigerian side of the border, the Nigerian port health officials are sitting in their post near the road and watching the scene. These gentlemen should be at the roadblocks screening people.
We asked them why they simply sit there and watch people stroll into the country and out. Oladipo, one of the border health officials says, “We’re watching them. We’re monitoring the people’s movements. If we spot anyone who looks sick, we’ll intercept them and do a check.”
He shows me his thermometer. Himself and his partner have one each.
“We screen arrivals with this to make sure no one is bringing in any disease. If the temperature is higher than normal, we won’t let them in. We’ll send them back to Benin. As for these people crossing freely, most of them live around this border either here or on the other side. We know them well because they pass here nearly everyday. That’s why you see that they pass without a check. We’re familiar with them. But when we see a stranger, we stop them. We’re watching the border.”
For this reporter, it was my first time at this border. But I crossed the border into Benin territory without even knowing I had crossed the border, and I made it back into Nigeria without any officer — health, immigration or others — stopping me for one second. Maybe they didn’t see me or they didn’t bother, or they didn’t notice I’m a stranger.
Clearly, the situation is beyond the control of these health officials. First of all, there aren’t enough personnel on the ground. There are just two health officers each on the arrival side and the departure side at the Nigerian border. Even if these two ask everyone coming in to line up and ask those in their vehicles to get out and form a queue, they would be overwhelmed by the influx.
Besides, these two officers have nothing but two thermometers to do their work. Oladipo says the government has provided nothing else.
“The government hasn’t given us any equipment for us to do our job well,’ he says. ‘Whatever we do now, it’s just out of patriotism and the feeling that if we let in just one infected person, it’s a threat to the entire population, including our own families back in Nigeria. If we are negligent here, it may affect our families. So that’s what we consider. There’s no provision other than these two thermometers.”
Some people recently tried to bring in a Nigerian corpse from Togo. They reached the Beninoise side of the border station and the Beninoise let them cross on to Nigeria after checking their papers. But the Nigerian port health officers didn’t let them nor the corpse into the country on grounds that the death could have been caused by Ebola.
 |
| Many people, especially those on foot, cross the border at will and without checks. Photo – Adedayo Ademuwagun. |
Today, some arrivals personally walk up to the border officials and
turn in their passport for checking. They’re required to fill a health
form to give their personal information and their recent travel and
medical history.
At the departure side of the Nigerian border, the two port health workers on that side are having a chat at their post while the rain drizzles. They express their concern to me about the border condition.
One of them named Biodun says, “This place is in a bad condition as you can see. It’s a porous border. The conditions don’t make for proper checking and people can easily get through. But there’s not much we can do under these conditions. It’s beyond us. The Nigerian and Beninoise governments need to speed the construction of this new border station so that we can move over. There, we’ll be able to screen everyone and there’ll be no loose movement like you see now. Everyone, immigration, police and the rest of us, will be able to do their job well.”
President Goodluck Jonathan and Benin president Boni Yaya were at the
new border station with their entourage last Friday to lay the
foundation stone. President Jonathan said, ‘Our objective in Ecowas is
to reconfigure our land borders so as to enable efficient and joint
border control functions by relevant officials of neighboring countries
within our community.’
Officials say the station will take at least another one year to
complete. But in the meantime, it looks like Nigeria will remain
vulnerable through this border.
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