Benin-Nigeria | Customs and Immigration

We found out that the visa is 4 weeks valid from the day it was issued. We droped the passports Monday and could picked it up on Friday. So, we habe lost nearly a week.
Sundays the costum gay is going in church they explain us and we have to wait for him. This was3 hours ago we still here.

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UK passport, motorbike with CDP. Benin to Nigeria.

Very friendly on both sides, arrived 0800 on Monday morning, took maybe 1.5hrs for both sides. No queues. SIM card not possible without a national ID card. Money exchange at the border was easy with good rate.

Road from Porto Ovo was a bit bumpy and very dusty, no real issues though. Road in Nigeria (at least until Benin City) was pretty decent, some parts a little bumpy but mostly pretty decent.

Lots of check points but on motorbike I was only stopped 3 times, a quick chat and then let me go.

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easy border crossing, crossed Benin to Nigeria by bicycle. Benin side 10min and Nigeria around 30 min. People are all friendly on both sides- no problems at all. Road from Porto Novo to the Border not very good - a lot of potholes. Nigeria Side to Owode good road, around 10 Checkpoints but at least one official guy at every checkpoint. Very friendly and welcoming!

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Easy border crossing. We crossed Benin-Nigeria early in the morning (7am), so some people had to be pulled out of bed to stamp passports/the Carnet. Only thing, it took us a good 2 hours and we went through 24 police checkpoints in the 15km to the main road on the Nigerian side. Some of them had uniform, others didn’t, some were incredibly sketchy and others very professional.

Either way, didn’t have to pay any bribes or have any issues after having the usual chat. The road was also very bad, but we still made it to the Cameroon Embassy in Lagos by 1430. Same with the meningitis etc. as below.

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Very easy and relaxed, by bike. No problems to exit Benin without passavant. On the nigerian side, if you're travelling without a carnet, you should make a bond but I managed to get a passavant for 8000 naira (negotiable but you lose time). Got a paper with customs stamps but no receipt.

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Without visa no change to cross the border. We where send back to Cotonou.

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Easy enough border. The Benin side made us wait while they called the chief to determine if our Entente visas were valid. The Nigeria side was pretty friendly but slow with a lot of desks. After the border are endless checkpoints every 100 meters until you hit the city traffic. No gifts were needed and only a few of the checkpoints tried to ask.

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an update on our previous message;
We left Nigeria at the Ekom border and when we got our exit passport stamp they didn't ask us to return or to check the TIP.

In total in Nigeria we got asked twice to show our TIP(which was just our expired insurance paper with a stamp on it).

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From this border to Lagos north would take you max 2 hours. ( It was a rainy day for ) Road is fine, police checkpoint just don't stop unless they are really blocking your way. If they complain why you did't stop, you tell them " I don't talk hitchhikers in my car " since they don't wear uniforms ?

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4 June 2017

Dutch citizens

DO NOT CROSS THIS BORDER WITHOUT A CARNET DE PASSAGE.

Road to the border quite rocky.

At the Benin border we were stamped out easily. The woman asked for CFA 1 000,- but let us go without paying after we asked for a receipt.

She did not ask anything about our car. 

After entering Nigeria you'll have to park behind a dodgy grey building on the right side of the road.

There are 2 desks outside where they will check your Yellow Fever papers and passport. Afterwards they will lead you inside where they stamp your passport. Very friendly, they did not ask for money, they'll take a photo and ask your route. We were aloud 30 days without hassle.

After stamps you'll have to go to 2 desks in the front of the building where they will write down your documents and ask for your route again.

This took roughly 2.5 hours all together.

Then we made the misstake to ask about a Laissez Passer and had to cross the street into a small container where customs told us that there are no TIPs in Nigeria. Instead people leave a bond of min. USD 1 000,- that they will get returned once they return to the border; this is the rule if you do not gave a Carnet. They showed us forms and books full of names and numbers and people that did this.

When we said we will not return to the same border, that the TIP in every other country costed USD 10,- max. and that friends of ours crossed the more northern and southern border without bond and without TIP(we read on blogs), he told us that's because at those borders they're corrupt and this border was the 'headoffice'.

He called a custom officer to find a 'solution' and told us it took 5 minutes for him to arrive.

Surprise surprise, we waited for an hour before the custom officer arrived and explained the whole story again. 

We asked then to let us go without TIP but they could not do that.

They asked if we have an official paper from Holland where they could put a stamp on.

We showed our expired car insurance papers from Holland, because everything was in Dutch they couldn't read it.

They stamped it and wrote down that we did not have a Carnet but are aloud to transit.

Then they asked for USD 10,- because 'that's what it costs in every other country'.

After 4 hours of waiting, after trying to secretly drive off and after thinking our trip would end here. 

We thought USD 10,- was a pretty good deal.

They certainly don't issue TIPs here, so a stamp was enough for us. Even if this was a rip off.

After 10 roadstops, only 1 asked for a Laisser Passez(strange, since they don't issue those in Nigeria right? lol). When we showed them our folded insurance paper he did not even looked at it for more than 2 seconds.

I recommend this border WITH a Carnet. As my guess is everything will be without hassle and bribes.

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Easy going border crossing, it takes some time but they do give you 30 days to stay in Nigeria what seems to be a problem on the northern border crossing. This is a small one roads are ok and if you want to go in Lagos the best option.

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Ddd

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