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Steve Agbota, [email protected] 08033302331
Nigeria has been in local and international news for illicit trade and smuggling of Pangolin and other endangered species through its land borders and seaports. Thousands of tonnes of Pangolin scales, elephant tusks and other protected species originating from Nigeria and en route countries in Asia as well as Europe, the Middle East, North and South America have been intercepted by international Customs and security agencies.
Regrettably, Nigeria was the second in the world after United States of America and first in Africa to sign and ratify the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1974. To give municipal credence to this Convention, Nigeria promulgated the Endangered Species (Control of International Trade and Traffic) Decree No.11 in 1985 now enacted as Endangered Species Act 2016.
However, Pangolin and Elephants are highly protected and endangered species listed on Appendix I of the CITES as well as on Schedule I of the National Endangered Species Act, 2016, and the export of wild fauna and flora from Nigeria are covered by CITES Permit/Certificates.
It is however disheartening that Nigeria has become a transit nation for smuggling of these endangered species and this is destroying its image before international community. Pangolin become the world’s most trafficked mammal because it is being hunted for various purposes, including for food, traditional medicines, fashion accessories and it also considered a delicacy in many parts of Asia.
The incessant smuggling of the Pangolin across the nation borders and seaports is giving stakeholders concern. Just last month, the Singaporean Customs intercepted and seized 12.9 tonnes of pangolin scales worth $38 million smuggled from Nigeria. The pangolin scales discovered in a shipping container from Nigeria en route to Vietnam was declared to contain frozen beef.
In February 2019, Federal Government was disturbed and launched investigation into the seizure made by the Vietnamese Customs Service of over 2,500 kilograms of Pangolin Scales and 600 kilograms of Ivory Tusks as well as seizures by the Hong Kong Custom Service of 8,200 kilograms of Pangolin scales and 2,000 kilograms of Ivory alleged to have originated from Apapa Seaport in Lagos.
According to Minister of Environment, Suleiman Hassan Zarma, it was very unsettling when information was received that the Vietnamese Customs made the discovery in concealed containers declared as consigning knocked wood by the Vietnamese company – VIC Thanh Binh Import-Export Company Limited with office address at Lien Hong Commune, Dan Phuong District, Hanoi.
He opined that the source could not have been Nigeria as pangolin were near extinction in the country and that the elephant population in Nigeria, besides being under strict conservation regimes, would not be able to provide such high volume of Ivory. According to him, Nigeria is being used as a transit route for illegal wildlife trade and the image of our nation is being tarnished globally.
According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), tackling this phenomenon is complex and requires the cooperation of multiple stakeholders within and beyond Nigeria, including Customs, Police and National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESRA), as well as the World Customs Organisation, Interpol and the CITES secretariat.
However, stakeholders who spoke with Daily Sun blamed Nigeria Customs Service and other security agencies for allowing containers carrying these products scale through the seaports and land borders. They said world wide, the smuggling and illegal wildlife trade estimated to worth over $150 billion per year, as highest number alleged to have come from Nigeria.
They said Federal Government must provide adequate scanners and other gadgets at the ports to tackle illicit trade and as equipped all the security agencies at the land borders through training to fight the menace of smuggling.
While also speaking with Daily Sun on telephone, the National Pubic Relations Officer of NCS, Joseph Attah said Pangolin is among the seizures statistics of Nigeria Customs Service. For instance, he said between 2016 and now, the Service had made a total seizures of 549 weight 13,603 kilograms.
He added: “2016 and 2018, we have made that much seizures and smuggling is an act that is being from all angles, that is not to say that one can say completely, smuggling has been wiped away from Nigeria. No country boast of saying that 100 per cent of smuggling does not take place especially in a country like Nigeria where we have porous border, where we have some fellow Nigerians who are ready to assist the smugglers to beat the works and checks of security agencies.
“Smuggling could still take place in some of the remotest part of our land borders. That as much as possible we are doing our best to ensure that nothing that could affect our environment and our economy for security disallowed and illegal passage.”
On two huge shipments of pangolin scales from Nigeria intercepted in Singapore, Chair, Pangolin Conservation Guild Nigeria aka Pangolin Conservation Working Group Nigeria (PCWGN), Dr. Olajumoke Morenikeji, said this kind of trafficking episodes has continued to precipitate concerns from conservationists all around the world, especially for a species like pangolin of which relatively very little is known of their biology and ecological roles and functions.
She added: “We have witnessed a sharp rise in the last ten years of the trade of pangolins and their parts from Africa to markets in Asia, mostly China and Vietnam. The scale of this trade is escalating and mounting enormous pressure on the population of pangolins that may be left in Africa, a figure that no one at present has any idea.
Given that this current rate of exploitation goes on unchecked, she said in no short time the death knell will be sounded on the pangolin and they may be gone forever. She added: “This is a fate we can prevent by working cohesively, and PCWGN is using this opportunity to appeal to the Nigerian Presidency in particular and every other stakeholder to save pangolins. Tighter border surveillance, equipping, training and empowering of enforcement agents to arrest and prosecute wildlife criminals, and provision of resources to carry out pangolin population survey are a few of the identified ways the Nigerian Federal Government can help in the fight.”
