Inside Nigeria’s shocking wildlife crimes and how culprits escape justice

After a poacher died following a clash with rangers at Nigeria’s Yankari Game Reserve, officials went with police to the nearby communities in Bauchi State, in the country’s restive northeast, to calm tensions. The relatives of the deceased had vowed retaliation.
In May 2013, about a month after the encounter, poachers ambushed a patrol team and shot a ranger dead. Weeks later, another ranger, left by colleagues to watch their motorbikes, was brutally hacked to death. Officials managed to arrest one of the killers, but they had a different concern: Even if all the assailants were caught, they were unlikely to face justice.
There were telling examples. Poachers arrested in the past returned to hunt in the reserve after being “allowed to escape from custody or (are) released after paying a very small fine only”, according to official records. One elephant poacher arrested three times returned after his court cases were abandoned each time.
Then in 2016, a man described as Yankari’s most wanted elephant hunter, who had killed a ranger before, was arrested after being on the run for years. But as the officials feared, the man, identified as Ilu Bello, regained his freedom just months after being handed to police. No explanation was given for his release.
“Prosecution of suspects arrested in the reserve is still very poor and the penalties imposed do not discourage offenders to stop or reduce poaching and illegal activities in the reserve,” the U.S.-headquartered Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which handles patrols at the reserve in partnership with the Bauchi government, wrote in its report in 2013.
In Cross River State, hundreds of kilometres south, poachers frequently raided animal sanctuaries too. And like in Bauchi, many of those caught were freed. All 15 hunters arrested in 2020 at the Afi Wildlife Sanctuary were reported to the Cross River State Forestry Commission for prosecution. None was charged.
“The lack of prosecutions is negatively affecting (the) morale of rangers who take great risks making arrests,” the WCS said of Afi.
At sea and air ports in Lagos and Port Harcourt, and at land borders in Adamawa and Katsina, traffickers of wildlife also escaped justice.
Nigeria has for years failed to hold wildlife traffickers and poachers accountable for their crimes despite federal and state laws that criminalise the killing and trading of protected species, an investigation by PREMIUM TIMES and Mongabay has found.

Our reporting revealed a trend: In many cases, wildlife poachers and traffickers were not arrested or traced; most of those caught were not prosecuted; and the few charged to court were asked to pay small fines or serve short terms. Many returned to their businesses after.

Suspects paid as low as N20,000 ($47) instead of a three-year jail term for killing an endangered animal such as chimpanzee or pangolin. Poachers were not arrested in multiple cases because there were no vehicles to convey them, and those arrested were later released because officials said there were no funds to keep them in pre-trial detention or pay lawyers for their trial.
At the ports, traffickers who ferried tens of thousands of tonnes of elephant tusks, rhino ivory and pangolin scales worth several millions of dollars were mostly never traced. Of 63 total interceptions collated between 2010 and 2021, suspects in 52 of the cases were either not arrested or charged to court. Many cases were listed to be under “investigation” for years.
No suspect, amongst them Nigerians, Chinese, Malians, Guineans, and Ivorians, served a jail term over the last decade for illicit trafficking of animals. The government said it obtained four convictions in the last 11 years – three were awarded small fines.
“It (convictions) is very low because we have to improve the capacity of our judiciary and our enforcement in understanding what wildlife crime is,” Nigeria’s Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, told us. “What are the endangered species? And what are the threatened species that should not be traded? It’s a lot of work we have to do.”
The findings are based on government and court records on seizures since 2010, publicly available data, and our analysis of hundreds of pages of reports of law enforcement at five wildlife reserves between 2012 and 2021.

After federal agencies initially refused to provide data, we obtained Nigeria’s submission to the Swiss-based Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The Nigeria Customs Service later released its record under the freedom of information law, and the National Environmental and Standards Agency (NESREA) provided additional information. The Federal Ministry of Environment’s Department of Forestry did not respond to our requests for data.
We also interviewed officials, including prosecutors, environmental campaigners and traders at wildlife markets in Lagos, Cross River, Ogun and Bauchi States as well as the Federal Capital Territory. Together, they shine a light on how Nigeria’s law enforcement and justice systems have done little over the years to deter perpetrators of wildlife crimes.

HUNTING GAME
The law enforcement records cover four protected areas in Cross River, namely, Mbe (community-owned), Afi (state-owned), Oban and Okwangwo (federal government-owned); and one in Bauchi, namely, Yankari (state-owned).
Created in 1956, Yankari became Nigeria’s biggest national park in 1991. It was handed back to the Bauchi government in 2006. A top destination for tourists, the 2,244 square-kilometre sprawling reserve is home to the critically endangered West African lion, buffalo, hippopotamus, roan and hartebeest and the Nigerian savannah elephants.
It suffered major losses between 2006 and 2014 when neglect by the authorities allowed poachers, herders and farmers a free reign. During this period, many elephants were killed to supply the illegal ivory market. Government records say the population of the savannah elephants fell from 350 at the time to about 100 now.
Protection levels rose after the Bauchi government signed a co-management agreement with the Wildlife Conservation Society in 2014, and arrests spiked with rangers offered $15 (N6,200) for each poacher arrested and $80 for the arrest of an elephant poacher.
But weak prosecution and penalties ensured poaching remained a threat. Elephant killings were recorded in 2020 and 2021, the first time since 2015.
Between 2013 and 2021, Yankari recorded 418 arrests of poachers but only 272 were prosecuted, according to our analysis of the annual records filed by WCS.Advertisements
The penalties were even weaker. In 2013 after several animals were found dead, including seven elephants with their tusks missing, hunters arrested that year received sentences of between six months to 18 months in jail.
They were, however, given the option of paying between just 10,000 ($63) and 160,000 naira as fines. A kilogramme of elephant tusk cost up to $2500 (410,000 naira at the time) in the black market in 2014, according to the Geneva-headquartered Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. An elephant’s two tusks can weigh up to 110 kilogrammes.
In 2017, hunters found to have killed hartebeest, hippos, baboon and patas monkeys were jailed between two and 18 months. They got fine alternatives as low as N30,000 ($189). Only repeat offenders had no option of fine.
Hunters arrested in 2020 for killing waterbucks, bushbucks and hartebeest, and suspected of killing an elephant and removing its tusks, got between six and 18 months in jail.
In a few cases, the reports say rangers took bribes from poachers and released them, afraid prosecutors and court officials would compromise the cases and release the suspects after all.

Some of the most tragic events at the reserve occurred in 2013. Rangers in April that year clashed with three poachers, and when one of them died in police custody, his family threatened retaliation.

Officials met with community leaders and received assurances there would be no reprisal. But on May 8, at about 11:30 p.m., poachers ambushed a patrol team and killed a ranger identified as Danazumi Baba. In June, another ranger, Babawuro Husseni, was attacked with machetes while his three colleagues left to survey their patrol area. They found his body some 100 meters away.
Rangers hunted for the assailants for months, while also trying to track the reserve’s most wanted elephant poacher, Mr Bello, who himself had also killed a ranger a year earlier. Mr Bello was finally arrested in 2016 by rangers and soldiers in the neighbouring Plateau State, but police released him just months later.
“We have not been told what happened, but we know he has been free,” said Nachamada Geoffrey, WCS’ landscape director for Yankari.
He said while security improved at the reserve over years, offenders still get away with weak penalties. “The Yankari protection law is outdated, and the penalties need strengthening to act as a deterrent,” he said. “If there are tough enough jail sentences to offenders as a deterrent, hunting and livestock pressure would be mitigated.”
Under the Yankari protection law, killing protected animals attract between three to 18 months in jail, with the option of fines. After years of failed promises, the government is now working to amend the laws, we learned. The state commissioner for environment, Ahmed Asmau, did not respond to requests for comments.

Oge Udegbunam contributed research to this investigation.
This report is part of a series on environmental crime in Africa, supported by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the Henry Nxumalo Foundation, and Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism.

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