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A coastal stretch in West Africa is a future megalopolis - set to become one of the most populous urban regions in the world in the next decade. The crown jewel is a long-promised, repeatedly delayed super highway meant to slash travel time and supercharge trade from Lagos, Nigeria, to Abidjan in Ivory Coast. But the task of harnessing its potential has barely been met. In the first of a weeklong series exploring West Africa's most ambitious urban corridor, NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu starts where it all begins - on the difficult road out of Africa's most populous city, Lagos.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC NOISE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Almost everyone who travels by road west from Lagos to Abidjan knows the toughest part of the journey is at the beginning, on the notorious Lagos-Badagry road towards the border with Benin.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: And it starts at the Mile 2 bus station here in Lagos. For years, this has been the key gateway to the region, where drivers call for passengers traveling to cities all along the coast. This hectic bus station is one end of one of the most vibrant economic arteries in West Africa, so we came here expecting to get a sense of the vibrant flow of people and goods.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE CHUGGING)
AKINWOTU: But instead, most of the vehicles are empty, and there are only a few travelers and businesspeople around.
MAMA NANA: We came since 5. I sit here. No passenger to enter.
AKINWOTU: Mama Nana (ph) is a 60-year-old businesswoman in a bright yellow floral wax-print dress. She's been sitting impatiently for a bus bound for Accra, Ghana, and has been here since 5:00 a.m., she says. But there aren't enough passengers, so the bus can't leave.
NANA: And my father from Liberia, while the mother from Togo - just between Togo border and the Ghana border.
AKINWOTU: She was born in Ghana and is an archetype of so many people in this region, with family and commercial ties that stretch across borders in West Africa, and switching effortlessly between several languages, depending on who speaks to her.
NANA: (Non-English language spoken) (ph). They will not...
AKINWOTU: She's lived in Nigeria for 40 years, traveling back and forth for trade, but now much less than she used to.
NANA: People have not been going like before. People have not been traveling to make business.
AKINWOTU: Part of the reason is the declining economy. Nigeria has for decades been the main engine of trade in West Africa, but gradual economic collapse has choked it with repeated recessions and a tanking currency. Compounding this is the road itself - infamous for being a gauntlet of extortion and abuse.
NANA: Too much - is too much. Every point, they have to stop. Driver must pay. They will collect your money.
AKINWOTU: Finally, Mama Nana's bus is ready to leave.
NANA: So the driver said we are going.
AKINWOTU: We say our goodbyes and jump in a navy blue Toyota to start the same journey with our driver, Peter Uche (ph).
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR SLAMMING)
AKINWOTU: In the next few years, this 600-mile road from Lagos to Abidjan will become a six-lane superhighway connecting ports and capitals across five countries. And this booming stretch of coastal cities is on track to outpace the world's major urban corridors like Boston to Washington or Tokyo to Osaka in Japan, which is what makes this road so vital.
But the pace of development is painfully slow. The highway project is backed by ECOWAS, the regional union of 15 countries in West Africa, but it's taken years to materialize.
PETER UCHE: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: We speed down the Lagos-Badagry Expressway when we can. Smooth stretches give way to deep, gaping potholes, forcing us to slow to a crawl, dodging the wrecks the potholes have left behind.
UCHE: Ah. What happened? What happened?
AKINWOTU: We pass a group of passengers wailing and thanking God for what looks like a near escape.
UNIDENTIFIED PASSENGERS: (Shouting in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: Their bus has tipped on its side, with a tire broken free. Thankfully, there are no casualties. Then the extortion that Mama Nana mentioned begins. We arrive at checkpoints where stern-looking police officers with rifles wave the car down.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: Uche has to pay a small bribe before we're let go.
UCHE: Foolish. They (inaudible). They like bribes too much, Nigeria police.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
UCHE: Yes.
AKINWOTU: They're foolish and like bribes too much, he says. But from here, it's relentless. We pass through almost 30 checkpoints in less than 30 minutes. Some are just meters apart, run by several agencies.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
AKINWOTU: Police, military, navy, customs, immigration, drug enforcement, even road safety, and even groups of young men holding sticks, without any uniform.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR SLAMMING)
UCHE: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: At times, our driver, Uche, can't help but laugh...
UCHE: (Laughter).
AKINWOTU: ...Even though the extortion is painful. He ends up paying police about half of the small amount he earns per trip, so he barely makes enough money to pay his rent and his children's school fees.
UCHE: Nigeria is very hard for now.
AKINWOTU: Life in Nigeria is hard, he says. Eventually, we arrive at the border, where all travelers face more extortion by immigration officials.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR SLAMMING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: We cross over to Benin - a tiny sliver of a country of nearly 15 million people, with a population smaller than the city of Lagos alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: But here, the roads are smooth, with virtually no checkpoints and no demands for money. The highway hugs the palm-lined Atlantic coast, leading west towards Abidjan, through several cities grappling with historic change.
Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, the Lagos-Badagry road. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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