The Hidden Cost of Travelling Around West Africa

As a West African seeking to move freely within my own region, I was subjected to extortion, while non-Africans enjoyed the very freedom that should inherently be ours. 

As a West African researcher working on the region, I have spent years conducting research mostly in Sierra Leone and Liberia—two countries I know very well. But a 2024 field trip offered a rare and firsthand experience of the daily struggles of ordinary West Africans crossing colonially inherited borders, challenging everything I thought I knew about freedom of movement within West Africa. As other instruments promoting economic integration and seamless movement of people such as that of the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) treaty promises an attractive idea: free movement of persons, goods and services across member states. This vision of a borderless West Africa, brimming with trade and collaboration, was one I thought truly existed. But it doesn’t.    

On 21 April 2024, I departed the United Kingdom for West Africa with a European colleague, for a four-week field trip. The first stop was Guinea Bissau, where we arrived by air in the early hours of 22 April, in time for the start of a three-day forum that brought together key stakeholders in the region’s coastal and marine conservation landscape. On the back of a successful forum revealing insightful ideas and initiatives, as well as providing immense networking opportunities, we set out again on a journey that took us by road from Guinea Bissau, through Senegal to the Gambia. We were both armed with our passports, full of optimism for a smooth journey. In addition, as a Sierra Leonean citizen, I had my ECOWAS identification card—a document my government has suggested is useful for seamless travel across West Africa. The optimism, however, eroded rapidly at each border crossing...