Onoh commends Customs’ seizure of snakes, scorpions destined for export

By Dennis Agbo

Founder of Woodland Park Zoo, Coal City, Enugu, and Chairman of Tenerife Hospitality Group, Dr. Josef Onoh, has commended the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, for its interception and seizure of 17 unrecorded scorpions and 340 snakes astatine the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos.

In a large breakthrough successful the combat against illicit trafficking of endangered species, the NCS precocious intercepted the reptiles packaged for export extracurricular Nigeria. The NCS Area Controller, Mike Awe said that the wildlife export was a breach of the Convention connected International Trade successful Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Reacting to the development, the conservationist, Onoh, said that connected behalf of himself and the broader conservation community, they widen commendation to the Nigeria Customs Service for the singular seizure, noting that it represents a important triumph successful the conflict against amerciable wildlife trade.

Onoh said that the amerciable commercialized is simply a scourge that not lone undermines Nigeria’s biodiversity but besides tarnishes the nation’s planetary estimation and threatens the delicate equilibrium of the ecosystems.

Onoh runs the multi-billion-naira Woodland Park Zoo successful the Iva Valley Forest Reserve, Enugu, designed to beforehand wildlife tourism and conservation acquisition portion offering a world-class safari experience. The zoological plot houses a divers array of species, including giraffes, zebras, antelopes, crocodiles, and assorted snakes.

Onoh said that the amerciable wildlife commercialized generates a worldwide estimated $7–23 cardinal yearly gross gross but has a agelong formed shadiness implicit Nigeria, positioning the federation arsenic a cardinal transit hub for illicit activities involving protected taxon specified arsenic pangolins, elephants, and reptiles similar scorpions and snakes, arsenic evidenced by the NCS seizure.

“These activities substance transnational crime, destabilize economical stability, and endanger nationalist information by facilitating the dispersed of zoonotic diseases. The trafficking of unrecorded animals, often conducted without respect for their payment oregon ecological impact, contributes to the depletion of Nigeria’s affluent biodiversity, with far-reaching consequences for our forests, wildlife, and the livelihoods of communities babelike connected sustainable ecosystems. The NCS’s proactive involution successful this lawsuit sends a almighty message: Nigeria volition not tolerate the exploitation of its earthy practice for illicit gain,” Onoh said.

?He added that nether the enactment of Comptroller Michael Awe, the Murtala Muhammed Area Command has demonstrated an unwavering committedness to enforcing the Convention connected International Trade successful Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which Nigeria has been a signatory since 1974.

“By intercepting these 17 unrecorded scorpions and 340 snakes, the NCS has not lone prevented a breach of planetary conservation standards but besides safeguarded taxon that play captious roles successful maintaining ecological balance. Reptiles specified arsenic these are captious to controlling pest populations and supporting biodiversity, and their amerciable commercialized risks section extinctions and disrupts the earthy harmony of Nigeria’s ecosystems. This seizure underscores the NCS’s pivotal relation successful disrupting transgression networks that nett from biology destruction, and I applaud their diligence successful ensuring that the seized animals volition beryllium handed implicit to the due authorities for due attraction and rehabilitation.”

?He stated that the harm caused by amerciable wildlife commercialized extends beyond biology nonaccomplishment since Nigeria’s estimation arsenic a hub for trafficking successful pangolin scales, ivory, and different wildlife products has, for excessively long, overshadowed its imaginable arsenic a person successful conservation and sustainable tourism.

“The NCS’s accordant efforts, including this interception and erstwhile seizures specified arsenic the 1,600 parrots and canaries successful July 2025, are reshaping this narrative. By collaborating with organizations similar the Wildlife Justice Commission and Focused Conservation, and done initiatives similar the Nigeria Special Wildlife Office, the NCS is demonstrating that Nigeria is taking bold steps to reclaim its lasting arsenic a liable steward of its earthy resources. These actions align with the National Strategy to Combat Wildlife and Forest Crime (2022–2026), which seeks to dismantle trafficking networks and beforehand sustainable biology practices.”

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