LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – Policemen wielding automatic weapons block a major road and demand money from motorists. An armed rebellion? No, just normal life in Lagos, Africa’s most populous city.

A recent corruption crackdown in West African heavyweight Nigeria has won plaudits from aid donors, who say it sends the right signal at a time when the United States, Britain and other rich countries are discussing whether Africa is on the road to reform and ready for a major aid boost.

In April, Nigeria’s last police chief was dragged to court in handcuffs on charges of stealing US$97 million. The education minister was dismissed for bribing entire parliamentary committees to pass his budget, and the scandal also forced the Senate president – Nigeria’s third highest ranking office holder – to resign.

In South Africa, the June 14 sacking of Deputy President Jacob Zuma over allegations he received kickbacks from an arms company was another positive sign that the world’s poorest continent is trying harder to fight graft.

But, as much as the World Bank and aid donors talk about Africa being on the cusp of a new era of democracy and transparency, many ordinary Africans will need to see a difference in their everyday lives before they are convinced change is here.

Lagos taxi driver Adisa Apati, 38, says he’ll believe the anti-corruption fight is being won when police stop demanding money from him on the road. Apita says he has to pay off police several times a day, often losing a third of his US$20 (euro16.60) daily earnings.

In several cases, drivers have been shot dead for failing to stop or pay a 14 US cents (12 euro cents) bribe at the checkpoints, sparking riots.

In the country’s oil-rich south, youth gangs and security forces collaborate to steal oil from the OPEC member nation’s pipelines. Nigerians complain of school and university teachers selling exam results for money or sex. Local governments hire middlemen to purchase essential infrastructure supplies, at multiples of the real price.

Strong action against corruption will help Africa convince developed nations that it deserves not just massive debt relief, but also a doubling then an eventual tripling of aid, as proposed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair hopes a coming G-8 summit under his chairmanship in Gleneagles, Scotland, next week will adopt these measures.

He has already made much progress, securing a deal to forgive at least US$40 billion (euro33 billion) of debt for 18 of the world’s poorest nations, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.

As he prepared to leave for the G-8 summit, President George W Bush announced three initiatives for Africa: spending US$1.2 billion (euro1 billion) to cut malaria deaths in half by 2010; doubling US spending to US$400 million (euro330 million) to promote the education of girls; and spending US$55 million (euro45 million) over three years to improve legal protections for women against violence and sexual abuse.

In London Thursday, British treasury chief Gordon Brown said the Paris Club group of creditor nations had agreed in principle to write off US$18 billion (euro15 billion) of Nigeria’s US$35 billion debt (euro29 billion) debt, the biggest in Africa.

But many rich countries are uneasy about the immediate call for a US$25 billion (euro21 billion) aid boost, and want more proof that countries like Nigeria are really being reformed.

Despite what still looks like a grim picture now, aid officials say they are hopeful of change in the near future.

“A few years ago… within most countries in Africa, you couldn’t mention corruption in an official setting,” says Andrew Alli, head of the International Finance Corporation – the World Bank’s lending arm – in Nigeria. Now, a number of pan-African reform initiatives under the African Union mean “things are, on the whole moving in the right direction”.

At the centre of those initiatives is a continent-wide alliance called the New Partnership for African Development. Earlier this month, that African Union initiative took a first step by publishing summaries of its first two African self-assessment reports, where a panel of Africans reviews how well nations are governed.

Muzong Kodi, Africa and Middle East director for the advocacy group Transparency International, says Africa has “a committed will to address the problem of corruption,” but the jury is out on the countries he cites as good examples: Kenya and Nigeria.

The 2002 presidential election victory of Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki initially raised hopes that a new era was dawning in East Africa’s diplomatic and economic hub, after 24 years of notoriously corrupt rule by Daniel Arap Moi.

However, corruption allegations have been rising against Kibaki’s government.

The fight against graft looks more serious in Zambia, where former president Frederick Chiluba has been charged on 234 counts for stealing over US$40 million (euro33.2 million). Despite being Chiluba’s hand-picked successor, President Levy Mwanawasa has backed the court prosecutions.