By Mary Agidi
In 2016, the then President of Nigeria, late Muhammadu Buhari, launched the “Change Begins With Me” campaign through the National Orientation Agency to restore moral values, encourage personal discipline and fight corruption among citizens.
One of the cardinal objectives of the campaign is to urge citizens to improve their personal conduct instead of only blaming the government.
In our daily activities and journeys, we continue to encounter different individuals, skilled and unskilled workers, displaying irrational attitudes that call for concern.
How will such individuals behave when they eventually occupy positions of authority in government?
Nigerians are fond of blaming and condemning the government and leaders for the systemic failure we are experiencing, without taking into consideration their personal contributions to the failure through the way and manner they handle the positions they occupy today.
Individuals form a family, and the coming together of families makes a society. This indicates that one ordinary individual from the society will one day attain a leadership position. The attitudes of these individuals as ordinary citizens will determine how they will lead when they attain leadership positions.
This is the essence of the “Change Begins With Me” campaign because, if individuals without integrity become leaders, we will continue to go backwards.
From Akure to Benin: A reflection on corruption beyond government.
A documentation of personal experiences from a three-hour journey from Akure to Benin is an indication of a deeply rotten system that raises the question of whether Nigeria could ever get it right like the developed countries, due to the irrational behaviours of some citizens. These range from the negligence of commercial drivers, to inconsiderate passengers who exhibit disgusting habits that inconvenience co-travellers, to extortion by policemen at various checkpoints.
Immediately after the increase in fuel prices in April 2026, owing to the US-Iran war, motorists doubled their transport fares. Akure to Benin was officially announced by the park management as N9,000, while the two middle seat rows were to accommodate three passengers.
Unfortunately, out of greed, the driver, in connivance with his conductor, decided not to allow all passengers to write their names in the manifest book in order to cover up for exceeding the approved number of passengers to occupy the bus. They asked one passenger to trek out of the park towards the road to convince the park manager, while the bus would pick him up by the roadside after the driver had driven out of the park.
Unfortunately, no passenger agreed to make such a sacrifice after paying N9,000. When the driver was confronted by some passengers over such selfish behaviour, he shifted the blame to government, even though they had increased transport fares to reflect the current situation.
As if that was not enough ,the driver drove passengers out of the park to a nearby filling station under the impression that he wanted to fuel the bus before proceeding, as was their usual practice. Surprisingly, he left the passengers there for over an hour and disappeared into thin air with the excuse that he had gone to pick up his spare tyre.
That was a bus that had been at the park for hours before it was its turn to load, yet the driver could not make such arrangements beforehand. This
depicts how the poor are suppressing the poor, yet continue to apportion blame to leaders without sanitising society from their own end.
The police checkpoints
As someone who had, for a couple of years, travelled by road under the protection of a security convoy, it was a different experience travelling with ordinary citizens in commercial vehicles.
Travellers with security escorts will not encounter the same hurdles and disturbances as ordinary citizens. The driver who had extorted passengers was humbled at the numerous police checkpoints through unaccountable cash donations.
Between Ifon in Ose Local Government area of Ondo State and Benin City, there were no fewer than 10 police checkpoints, and our bus driver continued to drop money at every checkpoint without any offence or reason.
The most disgusting incident occurred when the driver pulled up by the roadside and alighted to collect change from a police officer at one of the checkpoints in Sobe. It was embarrassing to see uniformed men descend so low despite the continuous calls for them to desist.
At a particular checkpoint in Owan Local Government area, the officers forced our bus to park and started asking for means of identification while searching luggage. As a journalist, this was a scary encounter because men in uniform are often uncomfortable around journalists.
We were subjected to the ordeal because the driver seemed to have exhausted his budget for checkpoint offerings and became reluctant to part with more money.
This happened in an area surrounded by forest.
What I could do was quickly excuse myself to a nearby corner to urinate in an attempt to avoid self-identification. Fortunately, upon my return, the issue had been resolved. It eventually got to a stage that the driver faced passengers and asked that someone should help him out with N200 note, but for the initial treatment he gave them, no one responded.
A female colleague, Lillian, who travelled from Osogbo through Ore to Benin, also shared her experience with police extortion of drivers. According to her, she observed that her bus driver gathered several N200 notes at the park before they departed, and she initially thought he probably had a party to attend.
She, however, understood the driver’s motive on the highway as he exhausted all the N200 notes, settling officers at checkpoints until they entered Benin City.
The Inspector-General of Police once announced that checkpoints should be dismantled. While this could have gone down well with drivers, police checkpoints somehow provide confidence that the roads would be free from kidnappers.
Aside from the fact that the attitude of officers at checkpoints contributes to why drivers overcharge passengers and inconvenience travellers, it also causes delays and increases travel time.
This situation is worrisome and continues to raise questions about the level of welfare packages allotted to our police officers, especially those on patrol. Are there adequate incentives? Is their salary scale so low that they need to seek succour through N200 collections at checkpoints?
Checkpoints should provide confidence and security, not serve as toll gates. This portrays the police force in a bad light, whereas there are many other policemen striving to remain accountable in the discharge of their duties.
A call for personal responsibility
Nigerians should desist from the attitude of “the poor suppressing the poor” in reaction to the economic hardship, we are making life more difficult for one another by so doing.