The informal transportation network, characteristic of many African cities, is notoriously dangerous. In Lagos, drivers are constantly threatened and forced to pay bribes; they suffer health problems like hypertension and partial blindness, and accidents are common. Fear is a form of governance. The police and the union extract money from transport drivers and share it with each other. The money passes up the ranks, to the union authorities and to political leaders.
In this book talk, Daniel Agbiboa, author of They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria, discusses his first-hand experience as a minibus conductor in Lagos as a way to better understand the culture and complexity of corruption and learn more about how such a harrowing and corrupt system can endure.
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