Migrant travel that takes place between West Africa and the migration hubs of Gao and Agadez is generally of a licit nature. This is the case because the majority of West African origin countries belong to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which maintains a free-movement protocol.[50] The legality of West African intraregional travel means that most migrants entering Niger and Mali do so using commercial bus companies that service the West African region. Depending on their country of origin, ECOWAS migrants pay between €50 and €100 to reach Agadez or Gao in a safe and comfortable manner, on a direct, air-conditioned bus from the main origin counties’ capitals. Two qualifying statements that apply are that: 1) this regular migration turns into irregular migration when migrants cross into Algeria or Libya without proper documentation; and 2) many ECOWAS migrants are unwilling or unable to produce proper documentation within Mali and Niger itself as well, which consequently makes their travel illicit.[51]
The commercial bus companies navigate this grey territory very aptly. According to eyewitness accounts, for example, the companies have developed a system to cross border checkpoints unhindered while still being able to transport undocumented migrants. They do so by stopping before the border to unload the undocumented migrants travelling on board. These migrants are directed to irregular taxi services that help them cross the border along uncontrolled points. They are met on the other side of the border by the same bus, which waits for its irregular passengers to board again before it continues its journey.[52] In some instances, bus companies even designate totally separate services for migrants – allowing other passengers to travel without this hassle.[53]
Eyewitness accounts also relate how bus companies pass several police checkpoints on the way to their final destination. These checkpoints, instituted because of the threat of terrorism in the region, allow police and other security officials to levy a toll on undocumented migrants before the latter are allowed to continue their journey.[54] To speed up the process, it has become common practice for bus drivers to collect the necessary funds from migrants beforehand and to distribute these to the police at each checkpoint.[55] This is indicative of the institutionalisation of police corruption, both in terms of the regularity of the interactions between bus drivers and police officials and the apparent stability of the fees that are levied at these checkpoints.
Source: Molenaar, F. 2017. Irregular migration and human smuggling networks in Niger, CRU report, The Hague, Clingendael.
At the national level, an even more collusive relationship exists between national political elites, criminal networks and bus company owners. Clear indications exist, for example, that bus company owners use transport proceeds to fund presidential elections and to enter political life (see Box 2 below). Clear indications also exist that the bus company owners are linked to criminal groups that use the buses to transport drugs and arms.[56]
The case of Elhadj Chérif Ould Abidine, better known as Chérif Cocaine, illustrates how linkages may form between transport company owners with criminal ties and political elites. As his moniker suggests, Chérif Ould Abidine was a kingpin in the trans-Saharan cocaine trade. He was also the owner of the Nigerien transnational bus company 3STV.[57] Before his death in February 2016, Chérif Ould Abidine sat on the National Council for the Restoration of Democracy (2010, a response to the military coup that same year), held a seat in the National Assembly (2011–2012), headed the Agadez list for the 2016 National Assembly elections and occupied the presidency of the governing PNDS-Tarayya party’s Agadez chapter.[58] President Issouffou and many other dignitaries attended his funeral.[59]
Rimbo Transport Voyageurs stands out as the international bus company with the most developed network of routes in the ECOWAS region. Rimbo’s owner Mohamed Rhissa Ali, a Tuareg businessman, started the Nigerien company as a primarily import/export-based enterprise in 1999. The company’s prominence in the international bus trade is a remarkable feat, given that it is a relatively young player on the passenger transport market.[60] Its expansion is indicative of the amount of money that can be made in the borderline-licit trans-Saharan transport industry. Perhaps coincidentally, this expansion also took place during the last Tuareg rebellion (2007–2009). While increased insecurity and the drop in travel this caused in the region hit several other large Nigerien bus companies hard, Rimbo opened offices in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Togo.[61]
Rimbo’s owner has used his fortune to forge political ties that proved collusive at times. He is a high-ranked member of the governing PNDS-Tarayya party and is considered to be one of the President’s main financial donors.[62] These connections have proven useful as Rhissa Ali’s financial affairs started making headlines over the last years. In 2015, he was caught while trying to leave the country with 10 billion CFA (15 million EUR) in foreign currency stuffed in several suitcases.[63] The Minister of Finance subsequently ordered the release of both Rhissa Ali and the money as he explained it to be common practice for businessmen of this status to travel with large amounts of cash.[64] His name also appeared in the Panama papers, but his large offshore holdings did not generate an official investigation on the count of the Nigerien authorities—or any domestic media attention for that matter.[65]
Source: Molenaar, F. 2017. Irregular migration and human smuggling networks in Niger, CRU report, The Hague, Clingendael.
As a consequence of this funding of Nigerien and Malian politics through all types of trafficking money, it is believed that organised criminal interests influence the government, such as by setting the parameters for certain security initiatives.[66] This clearly complicates efforts to target the role that bus companies play in the facilitation of irregular migration through state-sponsored initiatives. Indeed, although the 2015 Nigerien law related to irregular migrant smuggling contains an entire chapter devoted to the transport companies’ servicing of undocumented migrants, no investigations have been opened into the bus companies’ facilitation of irregular migration.[67]
These financial relationships are also indicative of a larger pattern of corruption of public authority by particularistic interests. In the long run, such practices hollow out the state from within. In the case of Mali, for example, the use of personal support networks and particularistic interests to become elected to parliament has been shown to result in a dynamic called ‘unanimism’. Under ‘unanimism’, consensus becomes the key norm of governance, as representatives rely on informal networks with the executive to obtain the resources needed to satisfy their support bases’ demands. In the process, dissidence forms a sure-fire way to commit political suicide – ultimately undermining the ability of elected officials to ‘scrutiny matters of national interest’.[68] In the case of Mali, unanimism contributed to rising levels of popular discontent that politicians failed to accommodate within the formal political process, ultimately resulting in the 2012 coup.[69]
Although the financial proceeds introduced in political life at the behest of the bus company owners facilitating irregular migration constitute only part of these dynamics, they are a pressing concern nevertheless given the current state of both Mali’s and Niger’s political systems. Genuine democratic opposition parties have disappeared in both countries due to their governments’ reliance on day-to-day corruption, patronage and nepotism to build governing coalitions.[70] These practices can only be rooted out through a more general focus on issues of good governance and the funding of politics and elections. Targeting such issues should be based on more systematic efforts to track the loops connecting criminal activities with pre-existing routes of patronage and influence trafficking. At the same time, such efforts would require a shift away from development policies aimed at border control and countering human smuggling towards longer-term institution building efforts.
Source: Molenaar, F. 2017. Irregular migration and human smuggling networks in Niger, CRU report, The Hague, Clingendael.