The existing borders between the Niger of the colonels and the Benin of Patrice Talon, undisputed cotton king and president of the country, are shamefully closed. Due to the sanctions applied in response to the military coup at the end of July last year, hundreds of trucks and containers are blocked on the other side of the bridge. Now even the harmless canoe, which allowed passengers to cross the Niger River, has received a stop order.
Now even the harmless canoe, which allowed passengers to cross the Niger River, has received a stop order. This means that, as in a distant past, the borders between the two neighboring countries are completely or almost completely closed. In fact, there is the disputed oil pipeline that carries ‘Chinese’ oil from Niger to the Atlantic coast of Benin that keeps a border otherwise completely impassable ‘alive’. The free movement of people and goods in the space of West African countries, in short, the much-contested ECOWAS, moves further away from reality once more.
This is not the case of Abdou Boubacar, who exited the last frontier that imprisoned him for fourteen months due to a crime never committed in the city of Dosso, not far from the capital Niamey. He says he was born in Ivory Coast but on the prison release form it says Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. He claims to have studied in Liberia where English is spoken but his French is almost perfect. He says that, being his mother Ivorian, he spent vacations with her and this would explain everything. As a teenager, he follows his older brother to Mauritania and then returns to a homeland of choice at the moment and circumstances. According to the release form, Abdou was born in 2003 and would therefore be 23 years old and have crossed at least the same number of borders, if not more. He decides to cross the sea and for this reason leaves Liberia, passes through Guinea, Mali, and, having navigated the Sahara desert, arrives in Algeria.
He works for a few months in Algiers in construction sites as a tiler, laborer, and painter. The necessary time to go to Libya and finally attempt the dream of the Mediterranean to reach Italy. After a short stay in Tripoli, he pays 1700 euros to the ‘passeur’ for the last available spot on the boat. He assures that there were 113 passengers of all nationalities from Africa and elsewhere, including women and children. Departing at dusk, they were stopped by the Libyan coast guard just a hundred meters from the coast. Forced to work for a few months for free by some boss, he returns to Algeria where, this time, the guards and soldiers arrest and deport him to the Niger border. He crosses, with others like him, the invisible border between the two countries at night to reach a town mainly inhabited by expelled migrants called Assamaka. After a short stay, with the money hidden in the intimate parts of his body, he reaches Arlit, Agadez and, in the town of Dosso, passes the door of the civil prison. He displays the prison release form as the only trophy earned in these years of border violations. Fourteen useless months in prison for a young man just over twenty are not few.
Abdou finds himself surprised, hungry and lost, counting the number of borders that have crossed him since he was born who knows where, when and why. Maybe he will return to where he started to once again test the patience of the desert and the uncertainty of the sea. Abdou will ask the destination of his journey to the borders that, so far, have never betrayed him.
