The uneasy journeys in West Africa

Traveling by air within the West African sub-region shouldn't have to be a rough journey. After all, with the existence of ECOWAS and the geographical closeness of these West African states, this should be one of the most easiest tasks. In Europe, travelers move from one country to another usually with ease and at lower costs. The case is different in the West African region; traveling by air has been known to be expensive and time-wasting as travelers have to make stopovers at different countries in the midst of their journey.

The phenomenon is not different when traveling by road. Passengers usually go through various checkpoints where they are mostly extorted by Customs and Immigration officials.

BBC's Umaru Fofana recently shared his experience and how complicated it was for him to travel from Freetown to Banjul which should take an hour. But he found out, because of the region's poor air connections, it can be quicker and easier to fly via Morocco or Belgium, although that could take a day, or even three.

The Journey

I recently had to travel to The Gambia on a reporting trip for the BBC.
In theory, this journey of 700km (400 miles) should take about an hour and The Gambia is a popular tourist destination, which is served by charter flights from across Europe.
But there are just two flights a week from Freetown and the days didn't fit with my trip.
 

Courtesy: BBC

One option would have been to fly with Royal Air Maroc via Casablanca, where there can be a stopover of 30 hours with no automatic entitlement to hotel accommodation.
So it is actually quicker, but far more expensive, to fly to Belgium's capital Brussels and then connect to Banjul.
That "only" takes 24 hours.
Another option would have been with Air Cote D'Ivoire, a relatively new kid on the aviation block.
This would have meant flying via its hub in Abidjan, then to Dakar and onward to Banjul.
However, I would have needed to stay overnight in Abidjan, and possibly another night in Dakar to be able catch Brussels Airlines which is virtually the only reliable means of flying to Banjul from the Senegalese capital.
So a total journey time of about three days.

In the end, the best option was to drive from Freetown to Conakry, before flying to Dakar, Senegal's capital, where I spent the night to get my connecting flight to Banjul the following day.
I spent two days travelling for a trip that should have taken me just over an hour.
My return leg was even more exhausting. I flew from Banjul to Dakar, spent the night and flew on the next evening to Conakry.
I had to spend another night in Guinea's capital before driving to Freetown on the third day.
  
Complains and agitations

In Conakry, I met other travellers who were on different legs of their various journeys around West Africa.
Most of them were businesspeople who complained about the hassle, saying it made travel more expensive.

What are the probable causes?
The collapse of many airlines owned by West African states have been attributed to this problem. Even with their existence many of these carriers were propped up financially and protected by regulation, stifling competition and leaving domestic and regional routes undeveloped for a long time. Another factor is that some African countries have still not opened up their skies to each other - allowed other countries' carries to use their airports - yet they have opened up to carriers from other continents.

In the end, the poor traveling system within the sub-region is bound to affect the idea of free movement of goods and services as envisioned by the founding heads of state of the regional body Ecowas.

Source: BBC