large, imposing figure. With an undomesticated
beard and a toothpick wedged between his lips,
he considers the melee with an incongruously
beatific smile.
Then he cackles: “Rice and beans!”
The Boss—which is what everyone in Agadez
calls the man—is not describing food. He refers,
instead, to the composition of the convoy. You
have rice: the many hundreds of Nigerien passen-
gers who have joined this weekly caravan to Libya
to find work. Then you have others, the beans—
no more than maybe seven per pickup—who are
from elsewhere, and who are headed elsewhere,
for reasons of their own. It is the Boss’s recipe.
He is, you could say, an exporter of beans. Count-
less thousands of them, since he first entered
the business in 2001 and continuing even after
Niger’s government made it illegal in 2015.
The flow of travelers has not stopped, and it
will not stop. West Africa’s intensifying insta-
bility guarantees this. The Boss’s job is to man-
age the flow. As a passeur, he sits at the top of a
shadowy network, possibly the biggest in Aga-
dez, consisting of at least a hundred drivers and
about as many coxeurs, subordinates who han-
dle the arrangements. Before the trucks arrive
at the checkpoint, they obtain their authoriza-
tion papers at the Agadez bus station from a
city official, who happens to be the Boss. Pay-
ments are made. Papers signed. Eyes averted.
The journey begins.
“They know me everywhere,” he declares.
NIGER ON THE EDGE 117